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fTiBRAPV Of CONGRESS 

Two Conip? Rer.pivfid 

AUG 17 1906 

Copyn t .i.i Lniiy 

Clcuz /,/90 6 

CLA5S V Cl* XXc. No 

/SX2.3 $ 

COPY B. 


Copyright, 1895* 1896, 1897, 1904, 1905, 1906, by 
Harper & Brothers. 


All rights reserved. 
Published September, 1906, 








RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 

THE LITTLE JOYS OF MARGARET 

ELIZABETH JORDAN 

KIT TIE'S SISTER JOSEPHINE 

ALICE BROWN 

THE WIZARD'S TOUCH 

CHARLES B. DE CAMP 

THE BITTER CUP 

MARY APPLEWHITE BACON 

HIS SISTER 

ELEANOR A. HALLOWELL 

THE PERFECT YEAR 

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

EDITH A 

OCTAVE THANET 
THE STOUT MISS HOPKINS’S 
BICYCLE 

MARY M. MEARS 

THE MARRYING OF ESTHER 

JULIAN RALPH 

CORDELIA'S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 

E. A. ALEXANDER 

THE PRIZE-FUND BENEFICIARY 



















Introduction 


It is many years now since the Amer¬ 
ican Girl began to engage the conscious¬ 
ness of the American novelist. Before 
the expansive period following the Civil 
War, in the later eighteen-sixties and 
the earlier eighteen-seventies, she had of 
course been his heroine, unless he went 
abroad for one in court circles, or back 
for one in the feudal ages. Until the 
time noted, she had been a heroine and 
then an American girl. After that she 
was an American girl, and then a hero¬ 
ine; and she was often studied against 
foreign backgrounds, in contrast with 
other international figures, and her value 
ascertained in comparison with their 
valuelessness, though sometimes she was 
portrayed in those poses of flirtation of 
which she was born mistress. Even in 
these her superiority to all other kinds 
of girls was insinuated if not asserted. 

The young ladies in the present col- 


VI 


Introduction 


lection are all American girls but one, 
if we are to suppose Mr. Le Gallienne’s 
winning type to be of the same English 
origin as himself. We can be surer of 
him than of her, however; but there is 
no question of the native Americanness 
of Mrs. Alexander’s girl, who is done 
so strikingly to the life, with courage 
to grapple a character and a tem¬ 
perament as uncommon as it is true, 
which we have rarely found among our 
fictionists. Having said this, we must 
hedge in favor of Miss Jordan’s most 
autochthonic Miss Kittie, so young a 
girl as to be still almost a little girl, and 
with a head full of the ideals of little- 
girlhood concerning young-girlhood. The 
pendant to her pretty picture is the study 
of elderly girlhood by O'ctave Thanet, 
or that by Miss Alice Brown, the one 
with its ideality, and the other with 
its humor. The pathos of “ The Perfect 
Year ” is as true as either in its truth 
to the girlhood which “ never knew an 
earthly close,” and yet had its fill of 
rapture. Julian Ralph’s strong and free 
sketch contributes a fresh East Side 
flower, hollyhock-like in its gaudiness, to 
the garden of American girls, Irish- 
American in this case, but destined to 
be companioned hereafter by blossoms 


Introduction 


Vll 


of our Italian-American, Yiddish-Amer- 
ican, and Russian-American civilization, 
as soon as our nascent novelists shall 
have the eye to see and the art to show 
them. Meantime, here are some of our 
Different Girls as far as they or their 
photographers have got, and their ac¬ 
quaintance is worth having. 


W. D. II. 












The Little Joys of Margaret 

BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 

M ARGARET had seen her five sisters 
one by one leave the family nest, 
‘ to set up little nests of their own. 
Her brother, the eldest child of a family 
of seven, had left the old home almost 
beyond memory, and settled in London. 
Now and again he made a flying visit 
to the small provincial town of his birth, 
and sometimes he sent two little daugh¬ 
ters to represent him—for he was al¬ 
ready a widowed man, and relied occa¬ 
sionally on the old roof-tree to replace 
the lost mother. Margaret had seen 
what sympathetic spectators called her 
“ fate ” slowly approaching for some 
time—particularly when, five years ago, 
she had broken off her engagement with 
a worthless boy. She had loved him 
deeply, and, had she loved him less, a 
refined girl in the provinces does not 
find it easy to replace a discarded suitor 
—for the choice of young men is not ex- 


2 Harper's Novelettes 

cessive. Her sisters had been more for¬ 
tunate, and so, as I have said, one by 
one they left their father’s door in bridal 
veils. But Margaret stayed on, and at 
length, as had been foreseen, became the 
sole nurse of a beautiful old invalid 
mother, a kind of lay sister in the nun¬ 
nery of home. 

She came of a beautiful family. 
In all the big family of seven there 
was not one without some kind of 
good looks. Two of her sisters were 
acknowledged beauties, and there were 
those who considered Margaret the most 
beautiful of all. It was all the harder, 
such sympathizers said, that her youth 
should thus fade over an invalid’s couch, 
the bloom of her complexion be rubbed 
out by arduous vigils, and the lines 
prematurely etched in her skin by the 
strain of a self-denial proper, no doubt, 
to homely girls and professional nurses, 
but peculiarly wanton and wasteful in the 
case of a girl so beautiful as Margaret. 

There are, alas! a considerable num¬ 
ber of women predestined by their 
lack of personal attractiveness for the 
humbler tasks of life. Instinctively we 
associate them with household work, 
nursing, and the general drudgery of ex¬ 
istence. One never dreams of their hav- 


The Little Joys of Margaret 3 

ing a life of their own. They have 
no accomplishments, nor any of the 
feminine charms. Women to whom an 
offer of marriage would seem as ter¬ 
rifying as a comet, they belong to the 
neutrals of the human hive, and are, 
practically speaking, only a little higher 
than the paid domestic. Indeed, perhaps 
their one distinction is that they receive 
no wages. 

Now for so attractive a girl as Mar¬ 
garet to be merged in so dreary, un¬ 
distinguished a class was manifestly 
preposterous. It was a stupid misap¬ 
plication of human material. A plainer 
face and a more homespun fibre would 
have served the purpose equally well. 

Margaret was by no means so much 
a saint of self-sacrifice as not to have 
realized her situation with natural hu¬ 
man pangs. Youth only comes once— 
especially to a woman; and 

No hand can gather up the withered fallen 
petals of the Rose of youth. 

Petal by petal, Margaret had watched 
the rose of her youth fading and falling. 
More than all her sisters, she was en¬ 
dowed with a zest for existence. Her 
superb physical constitution cried out 
for the joy of life. She was made to 


4 


Harper's Novelettes 


be a great lover, a great mother; and 
to her, more than most, the sunshine 
falling in muffled beams through the lat¬ 
tices of her mother’s sick-room came with 
a maddening summons to—live. She 
was so supremely fitted to play a tri¬ 
umphant part in the world outside there, 
so gay of heart, so victoriously vital. 

At first, therefore, the renunciation, ac¬ 
cepted on the surface with so kind a face, 
was a source of secret bitterness and 
hidden tears. But time, with its mercy 
of compensation, had worked for her one 
of its many mysterious transmutations, 
and shown her of what fine gold her 
apparently leaden days were made. She 
was now thirty-three; though, for all her 
nursing vigils, she did not look more 
than twenty-nine, and was now more 
than resigned to the loss of the peculiar 
opportunities of youth—if, indeed, they 
could be said to be lost already. “ An 
old maid,” she would say, “ who has cheer¬ 
fully made up her mind to be an old 
maid, is one of the happiest, and, indeed, 
most enviable, people in all the world.” 

Resent the law as we may, it is none 
the less true that renunciation brings 
with it a mysterious initiation, a finer 
insight. Its discipline would seem to 
refine and temper our organs of spiritual 


The Little Joys of Margaret 5 


perception, and thus make up for the 
commoner experience lost by a rarer ex¬ 
perience gained. By dedicating herself 
to her sick mother, Margaret undoubted¬ 
ly lost much of the average experience 
of her sex and age, but almost imper¬ 
ceptibly it had been borne in upon her 
that she made some important gains of 
a finer kind. She had been brought very 
close to the mystery of human life, closer 
than those who have nothing to do beyond 
being thoughtlessly happy can ever come. 
The nurse and the priest are initiates 
of the same knowledge. Each alike is 
a sentinel on the mysterious frontier 
between this world and the next. The 
nearer we approach that frontier, the 
more we understand not only of that 
world on the other side, but of the world 
on this. It is only when death throws 
its shadow over the page of life that we 
realize the full significance of what we 
are reading. Thus, by her mother’s bed¬ 
side, Margaret was learning to read the 
page of life under the illuminating shad¬ 
ow of death. 

But, apart from any such mystical 
compensation, Margaret’s great reward 
was that she knew her beautiful old 
mother better than any one else in the 
world knew her. As a rule, and par- 


6 


Harpers Novelettes 


ticularly in a large family, parents re¬ 
main half mythical to their children, awe¬ 
inspiring presences in the home, colossal 
figures of antiquity, about whose knees 
the younger generation crawls and gropes, 
but whose heads are hidden in the mists 
of prehistoric legend. They are like 
personages in the Bible. They impress 
our imagination, but we cannot think 
of them as being quite real. Their his¬ 
tories smack of legend. And this, of 
course, is natural, for they had been in 
the world, had loved and suffered, so 
long before us that they seem a part 
of that antenatal mystery out of which 
we sprang. When they speak of their 
old love-stories, it is as though we were 
reading Homer. It sounds so long ago. 
We are surprised at the vividness with 
which they recall happenings and per¬ 
sonalities past and gone before, as they 
tell us, we were born. Before we were 
born! Yes! They belong to that myste¬ 
rious epoch of time—“ before we were 
born ”; and unless we have a taste for 
history, or are drawn close to them by 
some sympathetic human exigency, as 
Margaret had been drawn to her mother, 
we are too apt, in the stress of making 
our own, to regard the history of our 
parents as dry-as-dust. 


The Little Joys of Margaret 7 

As the old mother sits there so quiet 
in her corner, her body worn to a silver 
thread, and hardly anything left of her 
but her indomitable eyes, it is hard, at 
least for a young thing of nineteen, all 
aflush and aflurry with her new party 
gown, to realize that that old mother is 
infinitely more romantic than herself. 
She has sat there so long, perhaps, as to 
have come to seem part of the inanimate 
furniture of home rather than a living 
being. Well! the young thing goes to 
her party, and dances with some callow 
youth who pays her clumsy compliments, 
and Margaret remains at home with the 
old mother in her corner. It is hard on 
Margaret! Yes; and yet, as I have said, 
it is thus she comes to know her old 
mother better than any one else knows 
her—society perhaps not so poor an ex¬ 
change for that of smart, immature 
young men of one’s own age. 

As the door closes behind the impor¬ 
tant rustle of youthful laces, and Mar¬ 
garet and her mother are left alone, the 
mother’s old eyes light up with an al¬ 
most mischievous smile. If age seems 
humorous to youth, youth is even more 
humorous to age. 

“ It is evidently a great occasion, Peg,” 
the old voice says, with the suspicion of 


8 


Harper's Novelettes 


a gentle mockery. “ Don’t you wish you 
were going?” 

“You naughty old mother!” answers 
Margaret, going over and kissing her. 

The two understand each other. 

“Well, shall we go on with our book?” 
says the mother, after a while. 

“ Yes, dear, in a moment. I have 
first to get you your diet, and then we 
can begin.” 

“ Bother the diet!” says the courageous 
old lady; “ for two pins I’d go to the 
ball myself. That old tafieta silk of mine 
is old enough to be in fashion again. 
What do you say. Peg, if you and I go 
to the ball together . . .” 

“ Oh, it’s too much trouble dressing, 
mother. What do you think?” 

“ Well, I suppose it is,” answers the 
mother. “ Besides, I. want to hear what 
happens next to those two beautiful 
young people in our book. So be quick 
with my old diet, and come and read . . J” 

There is perhaps nothing so lovely or 
so well worth having as the gratitude 
of the old towards the young that care 
to give them more than the perfunctory 
ministrations to which they have long 
since grown sadly accustomed. There 
was no reward in the world that Mar¬ 
garet would have exchanged for the sweet 


The Little Joys of Margaret 9 


looks of her old mother, who, being no 
merely selfish invalid, knew the value 
and the cost of the devotion her daugh¬ 
ter was giving her. 

“ I can give you so little, my child, 
for all you are giving me,” her mother 
would sometimes say;- and the tears would 
spring to Margaret’s eyes. 

Yes! Margaret had her reward in 
this alone—that she had cared to decipher 
the lined old document of her mother’s 
face. Her other sisters had passed it by 
more or less impatiently. It was like 
some ancient manuscript in a museum, 
which only a loving and patient scholar 
takes the trouble to read. But the mo¬ 
ment you begin to pick out the words, 
how its crabbed text blossoms with beau¬ 
tiful meanings and fascinating messages! 
It is as though you threw a dried rose 
into some magic water, and saw it un¬ 
fold and take on bloom, and fill with 
perfume, and bring back the nightingale 
that sang to it so many years ago. So 
Margaret loved her mother’s old face, 
and learned to know the meaning of 
every line on it. Privileged to see that 
old face in all its private moments of 
feeling, under the transient revivification 
of deathless memories, she was able, so to 
say, to reconstruct its perished beauty, 


io Harper's Novelettes 

and realize the romance of which it was 
once the alluring candle. For her mother 
had been a very great beauty, and if, like 
Margaret, you are able to see it, there 
is no history so fascinating as the by¬ 
gone love-affairs of old people. IIow 
much more fascinating to read one’s 
mother’s love-letters than one’s own! 

Even in the history of the heart recent 
events have a certain crudity, and love 
itself seems the more romantic for hav¬ 
ing lain in lavender for fifty years. A 
certain style, a certain distinction, be¬ 
yond question go with antiquity, and 
to spend your days with a refined old 
mother is no less an education in style 
and distinction than to spend them in 
the air of old cities, under the shadow 
of august architecture and in the sunset 
of classic paintings. 

The longer Margaret lived with her 
old mother, the less she valued the so- 
called “ opportunities ” she had missed. 
Coming out of her mother’s world of 
memories, there seemed something small, 
even common, about the younger genera¬ 
tion to which she belonged,—something 
lacking in significance and dignity. 

For example, it had been her dream, 
as it is the dream of every true woman, 
to be a mother herself: and yet, somehow 


11 


The Little Joys of Margaret 

—though she would not admit it in so 
many words—when her young married 
sisters came with their babies, there was 
something about their bustling and com¬ 
placent domesticity that seemed to make 
maternity bourgeois. She had not dream¬ 
ed of being a mother like that. She was 
convinced that her old mother had never 
been a mother like that. “ They seem 
more like wet-nurses than mothers,” she 
said to herself, with her wicked wit. 

Was there, she asked herself, some¬ 
thing in realization that inevitably lost 
you the dream ? Was to incarnate an ideal 
to materialize it? Did the finer spirit 
of love necessarily evaporate like some 
volatile essence with marriage? Was it 
better to remain an idealistic specta¬ 
tor such as she—than to run the risks 
of realization ? 

She was far too beautiful, and had 
declined too many offers of commonplace 
marriage, for such questioning to seem 
the philosophy of disappointment. In¬ 
deed, the more she realized her own situ¬ 
ation, the more she came to regard what 
others considered her sacrifice to her 
mother as a safeguard against the risk 
of a mediocre domesticity. Indeed, she 
began to feel a certain pride, as of a 
priestess, in the conservation of the dig- 


12 


Harper's Novelettes 


nity of her nature. It is better to be a 
vestal virgin than—some mothers. 

And, after all, the maternal instinct 
of her nature found an ideal outlet in 
her brother’s children — the two little 
motherless girls who came every year to 
spend their holidays with their grand¬ 
mother and their aunt Margaret. 

Margaret had seen but little of their 
mother, but her occasional glimpses of 
her had left her with a haloed image of 
a delicate, spiritual face that grew more 
and more Madonna-like with memory. 
The nimbus of the Divine Mother, as 
she herself had dreamed of her, had 
seemed indeed to illumine that grave 
young face. 

It pleased her imagination to take the 
place of that phantom mother, herself— 
a phantom mother. And who knows but 
that such dream-children, as she called 
those two little girls, were more satis¬ 
factory in the end than real children? 
They represented, so to say, the poetry 
of children. Had Margaret been a real 
mother, there would have been the prose 
of children as well. But here, as in so 
much else, Margaret’s seclusion from 
the responsible activities of the outside 
world enabled her to gather the fine flow¬ 
er of existence without losing the sense 


The Little Joys of Margaret 13 


of it in the cares of its cultivation. I 
think that she comprehended the wonder 
and joy of children more than if she had 
been a real mother. 

Seclusion and renunciation are great 
sharpeners and refiners of the sense of 
joy, chiefly because they encourage the 
habit of attentiveness. 

“ Our excitements are very tiny,” once 
said the old mother to Margaret, “ there¬ 
fore we make the most of them.” 

“ I don’t agree with you, mother,” 
Margaret had answered. “ I think it is 
theirs that are tiny—trivial indeed, and 
ours that are great. People in the world 
lose the values of life by having too 
much choice; too much choice—of things 
not worth having. This makes them miss 
the real things—just as any one living 
in a city cannot see the stars for the 
electric lights. But we, sitting quiet in 
our corner, have time to watch and listen, 
when the others must hurry by. We 
have time, for instance, to watch that 
sunset yonder, whereas some of our 
worldly friends would be busy dressing 
to go out to a bad play. We can sit 
here and listen to that bird singing his 
vespers, as long as he will sing—and 
personally I wouldn't exchange him for 
a prima donna. Par from being poor in 


14 


Harpers Novelettes 


excitements, I think we have quite as 
many as are good for us, and those we 
have are very beautiful and real.” 

“ You are a brave child,” answered her 
mother. “ Come and kiss me,” and she 
took the beautiful gold head into her 
hands and kissed her daughter with her 
sweet old mouth, so lost among wrinkles 
that it was sometimes hard to find it. 

“ But am I not right, mother ?” said 
Margaret. 

“ Yes! you are right, dear, but you 
seem too young to know such wisdom.” 

“ I have to thank you for it, darling,” 
answered Margaret, bending down and 
kissing her mother’s beautiful gray hair. 

“ Ah! little one,” replied the moth¬ 
er, “ it is well to be wise, but it is 
good to be foolish when we are young 
—and I fear I have robbed you of 
your foolishness.” 

“ I shall believe you have if you talk 
like that,” retorted Margaret, laughingly 
taking her mother into her arms and 
gently shaking her, as she sometimes did 
when the old lady was supposed to have 
been “ naughty.” 

So for Margaret and her mother the 
days pass, and at first, as we have said, 
it may seem a dull life, and even a hard 


The Little Joys of Margaret 15 


one, for Margaret. But she herself has 
long ceased to think so, and she dreads 
the inevitable moment when the divine 
friendship between her and her old 
mother must come to an end. She 
knows, of course, that it must come, and 
that the day cannot be far off when the 
weary old limbs will refuse to make the 
tiny journeys from bedroom to rocking- 
chair, which have long been all that has 
been demanded of them; when the brave, 
humorous old eyes will be so weary that 
they cannot keep open any more in this 
world. The thought is one that is in- 
supportably lonely, and sometimes she 
looks at the invalid-chair, at the cup 
and saucer in which she serves her moth¬ 
er’s simple food, at the medicine-bottle 
and the measuring-glass, at the knitted 
shawl which protects the frail old form 
against draughts, and at all such sad 
furniture of an invalid’s life, and pic¬ 
tures the day when the homely, affection¬ 
ate use of all these things will be gone 
forever; for so poignant is humanity 
that it sanctifies with endearing associa¬ 
tions even objects in themselves so pain¬ 
ful and prosaic. And it seems to Mar¬ 
garet that when that day comes it would 
be most natural for her to go on the 
same journey with her mother. 


16 Harper's Novelettes 

For who shall fill for her her mother’s 
place on earth—and what occupation will 
be left for Margaret when her “ beautiful 
old raison d’etre” as she sometimes calls 
her mother, has entered into the sleep 
of the blessed? She seldom thinks of 
that, for the thought is too lonely, and, 
meanwhile, she uses all her love and care 
to make this earth so attractive and cozy 
that the beautiful mother - spirit who 
has been so long prepared for her short 
journey to heaven may be tempted to 
linger here yet a little while longer. 
These ministrations, which began as a 
kind of renunciation, have now turned 
into an unselfish selfishness. Margaret 
began by feeling herself necessary to her 
mother; now her mother becomes more 
and more necessary to Margaret. Some¬ 
times when she leaves her alone for a 
few moments in her chair, she laughing¬ 
ly bends over and says, “ Promise me 
that you won’t run away to heaven while 
my back is turned.” 

And the old mother smiles one of those 
transfigured smiles which seem only to 
light up the faces of those that are al¬ 
ready half over the border of the spirit¬ 
ual world. 

Winter is, of course, Margaret’s time 
of chief anxiety, and then her loving ef- 


The Little Joys of Margaret 17 

forts are redoubled to detain her beloved 
spirit in an inclement world. Each win¬ 
ter passed in safety seems a personal 
victory over death. How anxiously she 
watches for the first sign of the return¬ 
ing spring, how eagerly she brings the 
news of early blade and bud, and with 
the first violet she feels that the danger 
is over for another year. When the 
spring is so afire that she is able to fill 
her mother’s lap with a fragrant heap of 
crocus and daffodil, she dares at last to 
laugh and say, 

“ Now confess, mother, that you won’t 
find sweeter flowers even in heaven.” 

And when the thrush is on the ap¬ 
ple bough outside the window, Marga¬ 
ret will sometimes employ the same gen¬ 
tle raillery. 

“ Do you think, mother,” she will say, 
“ that an angel could sing sweeter than 
that thrush?” 

“ You seem very sure, Margaret, that 
I am going to heaven,” the old 
mother will sometimes say, with one 
of her arch old smiles; “ but do you 
know that I stole two peppermints 
yesterday ?” 

“ You did!” says Margaret. 

“ I did indeed! and they have been on 
my conscience ever since.” 


18 Harper’s Novelettes 

“ Really, mother! T don’t know what 
to say,” answers Margaret. “ I had no 
idea that you are so wicked.” 

Many such little games the two play 
together, as the days go by; and often 
at bedtime, as Margaret tucks her mother 
into bed, she asks her: 

“ Are you comfortable, dear ? Do you 
really think you would be much more 
comfortable in heaven?” 

Or sometimes she will draw aside the 
window-curtains and say: 

“ Look at the stars, mother. . . . Don’t 
you think we get the best view of them 
down here?” 

So it is that Margaret persuades her 
mother to delay her journey a little while. 


Kittie's Sister Josephine 

BY ELIZABETH JORDAN 


K IT TIE JAMES told me this story 
about her sister Josephine, and 
when she saw my eye light up 
the way the true artist’s does when he 
hears a good plot, she said I might use 
it, if I liked, the next time I “ prac¬ 
tised literature.” 

I don’t think that was a very nice way 
to say it, especially when one remembers 
that Sister Irmingarde read three of my 
stories to the class in four months; and 
as I only write one every week, you can 
see yourself what a good average that was. 
But it takes noble souls to be humble in 
the presence of the gifted, and enthusi¬ 
astic over their success, so only two of 
my classmates seemed really happy when 
Sister Irmingarde read my third story 
aloud. It is hardly necessary to mention 
the names of these beautiful natures, 
already so well known to my readers, but 
I will do it. They were Maudie Joyce 


20 Harper's Novelettes 

and Mabel Blossom, and they are my 
dearest friends at St. Catharine’s. And 
some day, when T am a real writer and 
the name of May Iverson shines in gold 
letters on the tablets of fame. I’ll write 
a book and dedicate it to them. Then, 
indeed, they will be glad they knew me 
in my schoolgirl days, and recognized 
real merit when they saw it, and did not 
mind the queer things my artistic tem¬ 
perament often makes me do. Oh, what 
a slave is one to this artistic, emotional 
nature, and how unhappy, how misunder¬ 
stood! I don’t mean that I am un¬ 
happy all the time, of course, but I have 
Moods. And when I have them life 
seems so hollow, so empty, so terrible! 
At such times natures that do not under¬ 
stand me are apt to make mistakes, the 
way Sister Irmingarde did when she 
thought I had nervous dyspepsia and 
made me walk three miles every day, 
when it was just Soul that was the matter 
with me. Still, I must admit the exercise 
helped me. It is so soothing, so restful, so 
calming to walk on dear nature’s breast. 
Maudie Joyce and Mabel Blossom always 
know the minute an attack of artistic 
temperament begins in me. Then they 
go away quietly and reverently, and I 
write a story and feci better. 


21 


Kittie's Sister Josephine 

So this time I am going to tell about 
Kittie James’s sister Josephine. In the 
very beginning I must explain that 
Josephine James used to be a pupil at 
St. Catharine’s herself, ages and ages 
ago, and finally she graduated and left, 
and began to go into society and look 
around and decide what her life-work 
should be. That was long, long before 
our time—as much as ten years, I should 
think, and poor Josephine must be 
twenty - eight or twenty - nine years old 
now. But Kittie says she is just as nice 
as she can be, and not a bit poky, and 
so active and interested in life you’d 
think she was young. Of course I know 
such things can be, for my own sister 
Grace, Mrs. George R. Verbeck, is per¬ 
fectly lovely and the most popular wo¬ 
man in the society of our city. But 
Grace is married, and perhaps that makes 
a difference. It is said that love keeps 
the spirit young. However, perhaps I’d 
better go on about Josephine and not 
dwell on that. Experienced as we girls 
are, and drinking of life in deep 
draughts though we do, we still admit— 
Maudie, Mabel, and I—that we do not 
yet know much about love. But one can¬ 
not know everything at fifteen, and, as 
Mabel Blossom always says, “ there is 


22 Harper's Novelettes 

yet time” We all know just tlie kind 
of men they’re going to be, though. 
Mine will be a brave young officer, of 
course, for a general’s daughter should 
not marry out of the army, and he will 
die for his country, leaving me with a 
broken heart. Maudie Joyce says hers 
must be a man who will rule her with a 
rod of iron and break her will and win 
her respect, and then be gentle and lov¬ 
ing and tender. And Mabel Blossom 
says she’s perfectly sure hers will be fat 
and have a blond mustache and laugh a 
great deal. Once she said maybe none 
of us would ever get any; but the look 
Maudie Joyce and I turned upon her 
checked her thoughtless words. Life is 
bitter enough as it is without thinking 
of dreadful things in the future. I some¬ 
times fear that underneath her girlish 
gayety Mabel Blossom conceals a morbid 
nature. But I am forgetting Josephine 
James. This story will tell why, with all 
her advantages of wealth and education 
and beauty, she remained a maiden lady 
till she was twenty-eight; and she might 
have kept on, too, if Kittie had not taken 
matters in hand and settled them for her. 

Kittie says Josephine was always ro¬ 
mantic and spent long hours of her 
young life in girlish reveries and dreams. 


23 


Kittie^ Sister Josephine 

Of course that isn’t the way Kittie said 
it, but if T should tell this story in her 
crude, unformed fashion, you wouldn’t 
read very far. What Kittie really said 
was that Josephine used to “ moon around 
the grounds a lot and bawl, and even 
try to write poetry.” I understand 
Josephine’s nature, so I will go on and 
tell this story in my own way, but you 
must remember that some of the credit 
belongs to Kittie and Mabel Blossom; 
and if Sister Irmingarde reads it in 
class, they can stand right up with me 
when the author is called for. 

Well, when Josephine James graduated 
she got a lot of prizes and things, for she 
was a clever girl, and had not spent all 
her time writing poetry and thinking 
deep thoughts about life. She realized 
the priceless advantages of a broad and 
thorough education and of association 
with the most cultivated minds. That 
sentence comes out of our prospectus. 
Then she went home and went out a 
good deal, and was very popular and 
stopped writing poetry, and her dear 
parents began to feel happy and hopeful 
about her, and think she would marry 
and have a nice family, which is indeed 
woman’s highest, noblest mission in life. 
But Josephine cherished an ideal. 


24 


Harper's Novelettes 


A great many young men came to see 
her, and Kittie liked one of them very 
much indeed—better than all the others. 
He was handsome, and he laughed and 
joked a good deal, and always brought 
Kittie big boxes of candy and called her 
his little sister. He said she was going 
to be that in the end, anyhow, and there 
was no use waiting to give her the title 
that his heart dictated. He said it just 
that way. When he took Josephine out 
in his automobile he’d say, “ Let’s take 
the kid, too,” and they would, and it did 
not take Kittie long to understand how 
things were between George Morgan— 
for that was indeed his name—and her 
sister. Little do grown-up people realize 
how intelligent are the minds of the 
young, and how keen and penetrating 
their youthful gaze! Clearly do I recall 
some things that happened at home, and 
it would startle papa and mamma to 
know I know them, but I will not reveal 
them here. Once I would have done so, 
in the beginning of my art; but now I 
have learned to finish one story before I 
begin another. 

Little did Mr. Morgan and Josephine 
wot that every time she refused him 
Kittie’s young heart burned beneath its 
sense of wrong, for she did refuse him 


2 5 


Kittie’s Sister Josephine 

almost every time they went out to¬ 
gether, and yet she kept right on going. 
You would think she wouldn’t, but wo¬ 
men’s natures are indeed inscrutable. 
Some authors would stop here and tell 
what was in Josephine’s heart, but this 
is not that kind of a story. Kittie was 
only twelve then, and they used big words 
and talked in a queer way they thought 
she would not understand; but she did, 
every time, and she never missed a single 
word they said. Of course she wasn’t 
listening exactly, you see, because they 
knew she was there. That makes it dif¬ 
ferent and quite proper. For if Kittie 
was more intelligent than her elders it 
was not the poor child’s fault. 

Things went on like that and got 
worse and worse, and they had been going 
on that way for five years. One day 
Kittie was playing tennis with George 
at the Country Club, and he had been 
very kind to her, and all of a sudden Kit¬ 
tie told him she knew all, and how sorry 
she was for him, and that if he would 
wait till she grew up she would marry 
him herself. The poor child was so 
young, you see, that she did not know 
how unmaidenly this was. And of course 
at St. Catharine’s when they taught us 
how to enter and leave rooms and how to 


26 


Harpers Novelettes 


net in society and at the table, they 
didn’t think to tell ns not to ask young 
men to marry us. I can add with confi¬ 
dence that Kittie James was the only girl 
who ever did. I asked the rest after¬ 
wards, and they were deeply shocked at 
the idea. 

Well, anyhow, Kittie did it, and she 
said George was just as nice as he could 
he. He told her he had “ never listened 
to a more alluring proposition ” (she re¬ 
membered just the words he used), and 
that she was “ a little trump ”; and then 
he said he feared, alas! it was impossible, 
as even his strong manhood could not 
face the prospect of the long and drag¬ 
ging years that lay between. Besides, he 
said, his heart was already given, and 
he guessed he’d better stick to Josephine, 
and would his little sister help him to 
get her? Kittie wiped her eyes and said 
she would. She had been crying. It 
must indeed be a bitter experience to 
have one’s young heart spurned! But 
George took her into the club-house and 
gave her tea and lots of English muffins 
and jam, and somehow Kittie cheered up, 
for she couldn’t help feeling there were 
still some things in life that were nice. 

Of course after that she wanted dread¬ 
fully to help George, but there didn’t 


27 


Kittie's Sister Josephine 

seem to be much she could do. Besides, 
she had to go right back to school in 
September, and being a studious child, I 
need hardly add that her entire mind was 
then given to her studies. When she 
went home for the Christmas holidays 
she took Mabel Blossom with her. Mabel 
was more than a year older, but Kittie 
looked up to her, as it is well the young 
should do to us older girls. Besides, Kit¬ 
tie had had her thirteenth birthday in 
November, and she was letting down her 
skirts a little and beginning to think of 
putting up her hair. She said when she 
remembered that she asked George to 
wait till she grew up it made her blush, 
so you see she was developing very fast. 

As I said before, she took Mabel Blos¬ 
som home for Christmas, and Mr. and 
Mrs. James were lovely to her, and she 
had a beautiful time. But Josephine 
was the best of all. She was just fine. 
Mabel told me wfith her own lips that 
if she hadn’t seen Josephine James’s 
name on the catalogue as a graduate in 
’93, she never would have believed she 
was so old. Josephine took the two 
girls to matinees and gave a little tea 
for them, and George Morgan was as 
nice as she was. lie was always bring¬ 
ing them candy and violets, exactly as 


28 


Harpers Novelettes 


if they were young ladies, and he treated 
them both with the greatest respect, and 
stopped calling them the kids when he 
found they didn’t like it. Mabel got as 
fond of him as Kittie was, and they were 
both wild to help him to get Josephine 
to marry him; but she wouldn’t, though 
Kittie finally talked to her long and 
seriously. I asked Kittie what Josephine 
said when she did that, and she con¬ 
fessed that Josephine had laughed so she 
couldn’t say anything. That hurt the 
sensitive child, of course, but grown-ups 
are all too frequently thoughtless of such 
things. Ilad Josephine but listened to 
Kittie’s words on that occasion, it would 
have saved Kittie a lot of trouble. 

Now I am getting to the exciting part 
of the story. I am always so glad when I 
get to that. I asked Sister Irmingarde 
why one couldn’t just make the story 
out of the exciting part, and she took a 
good deal of time to explain why, but 
she did not convince me; for besides hav¬ 
ing the artistic temperament I am 
strangely logical for one so young. Some 
day I shall write a story that is all climax 
from beginning to end. That will show 
her! But at present T must write accord¬ 
ing to the severe and cramping rules 
which she and literature have laid down. 


Kitt te's Sister Josephine 29 

One night Mrs. James gave a large 
party for Josephine, and of course Mabel 
and Kittie, being thirteen and fourteen, 
had to go to bed. It is such things as 
this that embitter the lives of school¬ 
girls. But they were allowed to go 
down and see all the lights and flowers 
and decorations before people began to 
come, and they went into the conserva¬ 
tory because that was fixed up with little 
nooks and things. They got away in 
and off in a kind of wing of it, and they 
talked and pretended they were debutantes 
at the ball, so they stayed longer than 
they knew. Then they heard voices, and 
they looked and saw Josephine and Mr. 
Morgan sitting by the fountain. Before 
they could move or say they were there, 
they heard him say this—Kittie remem¬ 
bers just what it was: 

“ I have spent six years following you, 
and you’ve treated me as if I were a 
dog at the end of a string. This thing 
must end. I must have you, or I must 
learn to live without you, and I must 
know now which it is to be. Jose¬ 
phine, you must give me my final an¬ 
swer to-night.” 

Wasn’t it embarrassing for Kittie and 
Mabel? They did not want to listen, 
but some instinct told them Josephine 


30 


Harper's Novelettes 


and George might not be glad to see them 
then, so they crept behind a lot of tall 
palms, and Mabel put her fingers in her 
ears so she wouldn’t hear. Kittie didn’t. 
She explained to me afterwards that she 
thought it being her sister made things 
kind of different. It was all in the fam¬ 
ily, anyhow. So Kittie heard Josephine 
tell Mr. Morgan that the reason she did 
not marry him was because he was an 
idler and without an ambition or a pur¬ 
pose in life. And she said she must 
respect the man she married as well as 
love him. Then George jumped up quick¬ 
ly and asked if she loved him, and she 
cried and said she did, but that she would 
never, never marry him until he did some¬ 
thing to win her admiration and prove 
he was a man. You can imagine how 
exciting it was for Kittie to see with her 
own innocent eyes how grown-up people 
manage such things. She said she was 
so afraid she’d miss something that she 
opened them so wide they hurt her after¬ 
wards. But she didn’t miss anything. 
She saw him kiss Josephine, too, and then 
Josephine got up, and he argued and tried 
to make her change her mind, and she 
wouldn’t, and finally they left the con¬ 
servatory. After that Kittie and Mabel 
crept out and rushed up-stairs. 


Kittled Sister Josephine 31 

The next morning Kittie turned to 
Mabel with a look on her face which 
Mabel had never seen there before. It 
was grim and determined. She said she 
had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, 
and not ask any questions, but get her 
skates and come out. Mabel did, and 
they went straight to George Morgan’s 
house, which was only a few blocks away. 
He was very rich and had a beautiful 
house. An English butler came to the 
door. Mabel said she was so frightened 
her teeth chattered, but he smiled when 
he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan 
was home and at breakfast, and invited 
them in. When George came in he had 
a smoking-jacket on, and looked very pale 
and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, 
but he smiled, too, wdien he saw them, 
and shook hands and asked them if they 
had breakfasted. 

Kittie said yes, but they had come 
to ask him to take them skating, and they 
were all ready and had brought their 
skates. His face fell, as real writers say, 
and he hesitated a little, but at last he 
said he’d go, and he excused himself, 
just as if they had been grown up, and 
went off to get ready. 

When they were left alone a terrible 
doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked Kit- 


32 


Harper's Novelettes 


tie if slie was going to ask George again 
to marry her. Kittie blushed and said 
she was not, of course, and that she knew 
better now. For it is indeed true that the 
human heart is not so easily turned 
from its dear object. We know that if 
once one truly loves it lasts forever and 
ever and ever, and then one dies and is 
buried with things the loved one wore. 

Kittie said she had a plan to help 
George, and all Mabel had to do was to 
watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt 
better then, and said she guessed she 
could do that. George came back all 
ready, and they started off. Kittie acted 
rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel 
conversed with George in the easy and 
pleasant fashion young men love. She 
told him all about school and how bad 
she was in mathematics; and he said he 
had been a duffer at it too, but that he 
had learned to shun it while there was yet 
time. And he advised her very earnestly 
to have nothing to do with it. Mabel 
didn’t, either, after she came back to St. 
Catharine’s; and when Sister Irmingarde 
reproached her, Mabel said she was lean¬ 
ing on the judgment of a strong man, 
as woman should do. But Sister Irmin¬ 
garde made her go on with the arith¬ 
metic just the same. 


33 


Kit tie's Sister Josephine 

By and by they came to the river, and 
it was so early not many people were 
skating there. When George had fast¬ 
ened on their skates—he did it in the 
nicest way, exactly as if they were grown 
up—Kittie looked more mysterious than 
ever, and she started oif as fast as she 
could skate toward a little inlet where 
there was no one at all. George and 
Mabel followed her. George said he 
didn’t know whether the ice was smooth 
in there, but Kittie kept right on, and 
George did not say any more. I guess 
he did not care much where he went. I 
suppose it disappoints a man when he 
wants to marry a woman and she won’t. 
Now that I am beginning to study deeply 
this question of love, many things are 
clear to me. 

Kittie kept far ahead, and all of a sud¬ 
den Mabel saw that a little distance 
further on, and just ahead, there was a 
big black hole in the ice, and Kittie was 
skating straight toward it. Mabel tried 
to scream, but she says the sound froze 
on her pallid lips. Then George saw the 
hole, too, and rushed toward Kittie, and 
quicker than I can write it Kittie went 
in that hole and down. 

Mabel says George was there almost as 
soon, calling to Mabel to keep back out 

3 


34 


Harpers Novelettes 


of clanger. Usually when people have to 
rescue others, especially in stories, they 
call to some one to bring a board, and 
some one does, and it is easy. But very 
often in real life there isn’t any board or 
any one to bring it, and this was indeed 
the desperate situation that confronted 
my hero. There was nothing to do but 
plunge in after Kittie, and he plunged, 
skates and all. Then Mabel heard him 
gasp and laugh a little, and he called 
out: “ It’s all right, by Jove! The water 
isn’t much above my knees.” And even 
as he spoke Mabel saw Kittie rise in the 
water and sort of hurl herself at him 
and pull him down into the water, head 
and all. When they came up they were 
both half strangled, and Mabel was ter¬ 
ribly frightened; for she thought George 
was mistaken about the depth, and they 
would both drown before her eyes; and 
then she would see that picture all her 
life, as they do in stories, and her hair 
would turn gray. She began to run up 
and down on the ice and scream; but 
even as she did so she heard these ex¬ 
traordinary words come from between 
Kittie James’s chattering teeth: 

“Now you are good and wet!” 

George did not say a word. He con¬ 
fessed to Mabel afterwards that he 


Kittle* s Sister Josephine 35 

thought poor Kittie had lost her mind 
through fear. But he tried the ice till 
he found a place that would hold him, 
and he got out and pulled Kittie out. 
As soon as Kittie was out she opened her 
mouth and uttered more remarkable words. 

“ Now,” she said, “ I’ll skate till we 
get near the club-house. Then you must 
pick me up and carry me, and I’ll shut 
my eyes and let my head hang down. 
And Mabel must cry—good and hard. 
Then you must send for Josephine and 
let her see how you’ve saved the life of 
her precious little sister.” 

Mabel said she was sure that Kittie 
was crazy, and next she thought George 
was crazy, too. For he bent and 
stared hard into Kittie’s eyes for a min¬ 
ute, and then he began to laugh, and he 
laughed till he cried. lie tried to speak, 
but he couldn’t at first; and when he did 
the words came out between his shouts 
of boyish glee. 

“ Do you mean to say, you young 
monkey,” he said, “ that this is a put- 
up job?” 

Kittie nodded as solemnly as a fair 
young girl can nod when her clothes 
are dripping and her nose is blue with 
cold. When she did that, George roared 
again; then, as if he had remembered 


36 


Harpers Novelettes 


something, he caught her hands and be¬ 
gan to skate very fast toward the club¬ 
house. He was a thoughtful young man, 
you see, and he wanted her to get warm. 
Perhaps he wanted to get warm, too. 
Anyhow, they started off, and as they 
went, Kittie opened still further the 
closed flower of her girlish heart. I 
heard that expression once, and I’ve al¬ 
ways wanted to get it into one of my 
stories. I think this is a good place. 

She told George she knew the hole in 
the ice, and that it wasn’t deep; and she 
said she had done it all to make Josephine 
admire him and marry him. 

“ She will, too,” she said. “ Her dear 
little sister—the only one she’s got.” And 
Kittie went on to say what a terrible 
thing it would have been if she had died 
in the promise of her young life, till 
Mabel said she almost felt sure herself 
that George had saved her. But George 
hesitated. He said it wasn’t “ a square 
deal,” whatever that means, but Kittie 
said no one need tell any lies. She had 
gone into the hole and George had pulled 
her out. She thought they needn’t ex¬ 
plain how deep it was, and George ad¬ 
mitted thoughtfully that “ no truly lov¬ 
ing family should hunger for statistics 
at such a moment.” Finally he said: 


Kittled Sister Josephine 37 

sc By Jove! I’ll do it. All’s fair in love 
and war.” Then he asked Mabel if she 
thought she could “ lend intelligent sup¬ 
port to the star performers,” and she 
said she could. So George picked Kittie 
up in his arms, and Mabel cried—she was 
so excited it was easy, and she wanted 
to do it all the time—and the sad little 
procession “ homeward wended its weary 
way,” as the poet says. 

Mabel told me Kittie did her part like 
a real actress. She shut her eyes and 
her head hung over George’s arm, and 
her long, wet braid dripped as it trailed 
behind them. George laughed to himself 
every few minutes till they got near the 
club-house. Then he looked very sober, 
and Mabel Blossom knew her cue had 
come, the way it does to actresses, and 
she let out a wail that almost made Kit¬ 
tie sit up. It was ’most too much of a 
one, and Mr. Morgan advised her to 
“ tone it down a little,” because, he said, 
if she didn’t they’d probably have Kittie 
buried before she could explain. But of 
course Mabel had not been prepared and 
had not had any practice. She muffled her 
sobs after that, and they sounded lots 
better. People began to rush from the 
club-house, and get blankets and whiskey, 
and telephone for doctors and for Kit- 


3 « 


Harper's Novelettes 


tie’s family, and things got so exciting 
that nobody paid any attention to Mabel. 
All she had to do was to mop her eyes 
occasionally and keep a sharp lookout for 
Josephine; for of course, being an ardent 
student of life, like Maudie and me, she 
did not want to miss what came next. 

Pretty soon a horse galloped up, all 
foaming at the mouth, and he was pulled 
back on his haunches, and Josephine 
and Mr. James jumped out of the buggy 
and rushed in, and there was more ex¬ 
citement. When George saw them com¬ 
ing he turned pale, Mabel said, and hur¬ 
ried off to change his clothes. One wo¬ 
man looked after him and said, “ As 
modest as he is brave,” and cried over it. 
When Josephine and Mr. James came in 
there was more excitement, and Kittie 
opened one eye and shut it again right off, 
and the doctor said she was all right except 
for the shock, and her father and Jose¬ 
phine cried, so Mabel didn’t have to any 
more. She was glad, too, I can tell you. 

They put Kittie to bed in a room at 
the club, for the doctor said she was such 
a high-strung child it would be wise to 
keep her perfectly quiet for a few hours 
and take precautions against pneumonia. 
Then Josephine went around asking for 
Mr. Morgan. 


Kittled Sister Josephine 


39 


By and by lie came down, in dry clothes 
but looking; dreadfully uncomfortable. 
]\fabel said she could imagine how lie felt. 
Josephine was standing by the open fire 
when he entered the room, and no one 
else was there but Mabel. Josephine went 
right to him and put her arms around 
his neck. 

“ Dearest, dearest!” she said. “ How 
can I ever thank you?” Her voice was 
very low, but Mabel heard it. George 
said right off, “ There is a way.” That 
shows how quick and clever he is, for 
some men might not think of it. Then 
Mabel Blossom left the room, with slow, 
reluctant feet, and went up - stairs to 
Kittie. 

That’s why Mabel has just gone to 
Kittie’s home for a few days. She and 
Kittie are to be flower-maids at Jo¬ 
sephine’s wedding. I hope it is not neces¬ 
sary for me to explain to my intelligent 
readers that her husband will be George 
Morgan. Kittie says he confessed the 
whole thing to Josephine, and she for¬ 
gave him, and said she would marry him 
anyhow; but she explained that she only 
did it on Kittie’s account. She said she 
did not know to what lengths the child 
might go next. 

So my young friends have gone to 


40 


Harpers Novelettes 


mingle in scenes of worldly gayety, and 
I sit here in the twilight looking at the 
evening star and writing about love. 
How true it is that the pen is mightier 
than the sword! Gayety is well in its 
place, but the soul of the artist finds its 
happiness in work and solitude. I hope 
Josephine will realize, though, why I can¬ 
not describe her wedding. Of course no 
artist of delicate sensibilities could de¬ 
scribe a wedding when she hadn’t been 
asked to it. 

Poor Josephine! It seems very, very 
sad to me that she is marrying thus late 
in life and only on Kittie’s account. Why, 
oh, why could she not have wed when she 
was young and love was in her heart! 


The Wizard's Touch 


BY ALICE BROWN 



EROME WILMER sat in the gar¬ 


den, painting in a background, with 


the carelessness of ease. He seem¬ 
ed to be dabbing little touches at the 
canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun 
not likely to result in anything serious, 
save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing 
them off afterwards, like a too adven¬ 
turous child. Mary Brinsley, in her 
lilac print, stood a few paces away, the 
sun on her hair, and watched him. 

“ Paris is very becoming to you,” she 
said at last. 

“What do you mean?” asked Wil- 
mer, glancing up, and then beginning 
to consider her so particularly that she 
stepped aside, her brows knitted, with 
an admonishing, 

“ Look out! you’ll get me into the 
landscape.” 

“ You’re always in the landscape. 
What do you mean about Paris?” 


42 


Harper's Novelettes 


“ You look so—so travelled, so equal 
to any place, and Paris in particular be¬ 
cause it’s the finest.” 

Other people also had said that, in 
their various ways. He had the distinc¬ 
tion set by nature upon a muscular body 
and a rather small head, well poised. His 
hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully 
about the temples, and though it was 
brushed back in the style of a man who 
never looks at himself twice when once 
will do, it had a way of seeming entirely 
right. His brows were firm, his mouth 
determined, and the close pointed beard 
brought his face to a delicate finish. 
Even his clothes, of the kind that never 
look new, had fallen into lines of easy use. 

“ You needn’t guy me,” he said, and 
went on painting. But he flashed his 
sudden smile at her. “ Isn’t New Eng¬ 
land becoming to me, too?” 

“ Yes, for the summer. It’s over¬ 
powered. In the winter Aunt Celia calls 
you ‘ Jerry Wilmer.’ She’s quite topping 
then. But the minute you appear with 
European labels on your trunks and that 
air of speaking foieign lingo, she gives 
out completely. Every time she sees 
your name in the paper she forgets you 
went to school at the Academy and built 
the fires. She calls you ‘our boarder ’ 


The Wizard's Touch 43 

then, for as much as a week and a half.” 

“ Quit it, Mary,” said he, smiling at 
her again. 

“ Well,” said Mary, yet without turn¬ 
ing, “ I must go and weed a while.” 

“ No,” put in Wilmer, innocently; “he 
won’t be over yet. He had a big mail. 
I brought it to him.” 

Mary blushed, and made as if to go. 
She was a woman of thirty-five, well 
poised, and sweet through wholesomeness. 
Her face had been cut on a regular pat¬ 
tern, and then some natural influence 
had touched it up beguilingly with con¬ 
tradictions. She swung back, after her 
one tentative step, and sobered. 

“How do you think he is looking?” 
she asked. 

“ Prime.” 

“ Not so—” 

“ Not so morbid as when I was here 
last summer,” he helped her out. “ Not 
by any means. Are you going to marry 
him, Mary?” The question had only a 
civil emphasis, but a warmer tone in¬ 
formed it. Mary grew pink under the 
morning light, and Jerome went on: 
“ Yes, I have a perfect right to talk 
about it. I don’t travel three thousand 
miles every summer to ask you to marry 
me without earning some claim to frank- 


44 


Harpers Novelettes 


ness. I mentioned that to Marshby him¬ 
self. We met at the station, you remem¬ 
ber, the day I came. We walked down 
together. He spoke about my sketching, 
and I told him I had come on my an¬ 
nual pilgrimage, to ask Mary Brinsley to 
marry me.” 

“ Jerome!” 

“ Yes, I did. This is my tenth pil¬ 
grimage. Mary, will you marry me?” 

“ No,” said Mary, softly, but as if she 
liked him very much. “ No, Jerome.” 

Wilmer squeezed a tube on his pal¬ 
ette and regarded the color frowningly. 
“ Might as well, Mary,” said he. “ You’d 
have an awfully good time in Paris.” 

She was perfectly still, watching him, 
and he went on: 

“ Now you’re thinking if Marshby gets 
the consulate you’ll be across the water 
anyway, and you could run down to Paris 
and see the sights. But it wouldn’t be 
the same thing. It’s Marshby you like, 
but you’d have a better time with me.” 

“ It’s a foregone conclusion that the 
consulship will be offered him,” said 
Mary. Her eyes were now on the path 
leading through the garden and over the 
wall to the neighboring house where 
Marshby lived. 

“ Then you will marry and go with him. 


The Wizard's Touch 


45 


Ah, well, that’s finished. T needn’t come 
another summer. When you are in Paris, 
I can show you the boulevards and cafes.” 

“ It is more than probable he won’t 
accept the consulship.” 

“ Why ?” He held his palette arrested 
in mid-air and stared at her. 

“ He is doubtful of himself—doubtful 
whether he is equal to so responsible 
a place.” 

“ Bah! it’s not an embassy.” 

“No; but he fancies he has not the 
address, the social gifts—in fact, he 
shrinks from it.” Her face had taken 
on a soft distress; her eyes appealed to 
him. She seemed to be confessing, for 
the other man, something that might 
well be misunderstood. Jerome, ignoring 
the flag of her discomfort, went on paint¬ 
ing, to give her room for confidence. 

“Is it that old plague-spot?” he asked. 
“Just what aspect does it bear to him? 
Why not talk freely about it?” 

“ It is the old remorse. lie misunder¬ 
stood his brother when they two were left 
alone in the world. He forced the boy out 
of evil associations when he ought to have 
led him. You know the rest of it. The 
boy was desperate. lie killed himself.” 

“ When he w^as drunk. Marshby was¬ 
n’t responsible.” 


46 Harper's Novelettes 

“ No, not directly. But you know that 
kind of mind. It follows hidden causes. 
That’s why his essays are so good. Any¬ 
way, it has crippled him. It came when 
he was too young, and it marked him for 
life. He has an inveterate self-distrust.” 

“Ah, well,” said Wilmer, including the 
summer landscape in a wave of his brush, 
“ give up the consulship. Let him give it 
up. It isn’t as if he hadn’t a roof. Set¬ 
tle down in his house there, you two, and 
let him write his essays, and you—just 
be happy.” 

She ignored her own part in the 
prophecy completely and finally. “ It 
isn’t the consulship as the consulship,” 
she responded. “ It is the life abroad I 
want for him. It would give him—well, 
it would give him what it has given you. 
His work would show it.” She spoke 
hotly, and at once Jerome saw himself 
envied for his brilliant cosmopolitan life, 
the bounty of his success fairly coveted 
for the other man. It gave him a curious 
pang. He felt, somehow, impoverished, 
and drew his breath more meagrely. But 
the actual thought in his mind grew too 
big to be suppressed, and he stayed his 
hand to look at her. 

“ That’s not all,” he said. 

“ All what ?” 


The Wizard's Touch 


47 


“ That’s not the main reason why you 
want him to go. You think if he really 
asserted himself, really knocked down the 
spectre of his old distrust and stamped 
on it, he would be a different man. If 
he had once proved himself, as we say of 
younger chaps, he could go on proving.” 

“ No,” she declared, in nervous loyalty. 
She was like a bird fluttering to save 
her nest. “No! You are wrong. I 
ought not to have talked about him at 
all. I shouldn’t to anybody else. Only, 
you are so kind.” 

“It’s easy to be kind,” said Jerome, 
gently, “ when there’s nothing else left 
us.” 

She stood wilfully swaying a branch 
of the tendrilled arbor, and, he subtly 
felt, so dissatisfied with herself for her 
temporary disloyalty that she felt alien 
to them both: Marshby because she had 
wronged him by admitting another man 
to this intimate knowledge of him, and 
the other man for being her accomplice. 

“ Don’t be sorry,” he said, softly. 
“ You haven’t been naughty.” 

But she had swung round to some 
comprehension of what he had a right 
to feel. 

“It makes one selfish,” she said, “to 
want—to want things to come out right.” 


48 


Harper's Novelettes 


“I know. Well, can’t we make them 
come out right? He is sure of the con¬ 
sulship ?” 

“ Practically.” 

“ You want to be assured of his 
taking it.” 

She did not answer; but her face light¬ 
ed, as if to a new appeal. Jerome fol¬ 
lowed her look along the path. Marshby 
himself was coming. He was no weak¬ 
ling. He swung along easily with the 
stride of a man accustomed to using 
his body well. He had not, perhaps, the 
urban air, and yet there was nothing 
about him which would not have re¬ 
sponded at once to a more exacting 
civilization. Jerome knew his face,— 
knew it from their college days together 
and through these annual visits of his 
own; but now, as Marshby approached, 
the artist rated him not so much by the 
friendly as the professional eye. He saw 
a man who looked the scholar and the 
gentleman, keen though not imperious of 
glance. His visage, mature even for its 
years, had suffered more from emotion 
than from deeds or the assaults of for¬ 
tune. Marshby had lived the life of 
thought, and, exaggerating action, had 
failed to tit himself to any form of it. 
Wilmer glanced at his hands, too, as they 


The Wizard's Touch 


49 


swung with his walk, and then remem¬ 
bered that the professional eye had al¬ 
ready noted them and laid their lines 
away for some suggestive use. As he 
looked, Marshby stopped in his approach, 
caught by the singularity of a gnarled 
tree limb. It awoke in him a cognizance 
of nature’s processes, and his face lighted 
with the pleasure of it. 

“ So you won’t marry mo?” asked Wil- 
mer, softly, in that pause. 

“ Don’t!” said Mary. 

“ Why not, when you won’t tell whether 
you’re engaged to him or not? Why not, 
anyway? If I were sure you’d be hap¬ 
pier with me, I’d snatch you out of his 
very maw. Yes, I would. Are you sure 
you like him, Mary?” 

The girl did not answer, for Marshby 
had started again. Jerome got the look 
in her face, and smiled a little, sadly. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ you’re sure.” 

Mary immediately felt unable to en¬ 
counter them together. She gave Marshby 
a good-morning, and, to his bewilder¬ 
ment, made some excuse about her weed¬ 
ing and flitted past him on the path. 
His eyes followed her, and when they 
came back to Wilmer the artist nod¬ 
ded brightly. 

“ I’ve just asked her,” he said. 

4 


50 Harpers Novelettes 

“Asked her?” Marshby was about to 
pass him, pulling out his glasses and 
at the same time peering at the pic¬ 
ture with the impatience of his near¬ 
sighted look. 

“There, don’t you do that!” cried 
Jerome, stopping, with his brush in air. 
“ Don’t you come round and stare over 
my shoulder. It makes me nervous 
as the devil. Step back there—there by 
that mullein. So! I’ve got to face my 
protagonist. Yes, I’ve been asking her 
to marry me.” 

Marshby stiffened. His head went up, 
his jaw tightened. He looked the jealous 
ire of the male. 

“ What do you want me to stand here 
for?” he asked, irritably. 

“ But she refused me,” said Wilmer, 
cheerfully. “ Stand still, that’s a good 
fellow. I’m using you.” 

Marshby had by an effort pulled him¬ 
self together. He dismissed Mary from 
his mind, as he wished to drive her from 
the other man’s speech. 

“ I’ve been reading the morning paper 
on your exhibition,” he said, bringing out 
the journal from his pocket. “ They 
can’t say enough about you.” 

“Oh, can’t they! Well, the better for 
me. What are they pleased to discover?” 


The Wizard's Touch 51 

“ They say you see round corners and 
through deal boards. Listen.” He struck 
open the paper and read: “ ‘ A man with 
a hidden crime upon his soul will do well 
to elude this greatest of modem magi¬ 
cians. The man with a secret tells it 
the instant he sits down before Jerome 
Wilmer. Wilmer does not paint faces, 
brows, hands. lie paints hopes, fears, 
and longings. If we could, in our turn, 
get to the heart of his mystery! If we 
could learn whether he says to himself: 
“ I see hate in that face, hypocrisy, 
greed. I will paint them. That man is 
not man, but cur. lie shall fawn on my 
canvas.” Or does he paint through a 
kind of inspired carelessness, and as the 
line obeys the eye and hand, so does the 
emotion live in the line?’ ” 

u Oh, gammon!” snapped Wilmer. 

“ Well, do you ?” said Marshby, toss¬ 
ing the paper to the little table where 
Mary’s work-box stood. 

“ Do I what ? Spy and then paint, or 
paint and find I’ve spied? Oh, I guess 
I plug along like any other decent work¬ 
man. When it comes to that, how do you 
write your essays?” 

“ I! Oh! That’s another pair of 
sleeves. Your work is colossal. I’m still 
on cherry-stones.” 


52 


Harper's Novelettes 


u Well,” said Wilmer, with slow in¬ 
cisiveness, “y° u ’ve accomplished one thing 
I’d sell my name for. You’ve got Mary 
Brinsley bound to you so fast that neither 
lure nor lash can stir her. I’ve tried it— 
tried Paris even, the crudest bribe there 
is. No good! She won’t have me.” 

At her name, Marshby straightened 
again, and there was fire in his eye. 
Wilmer, sketching him in, seemed to gain 
distinct impulse from the pose, and 
worked the faster. 

“ Don’t move,” he ordered. “ There, 
that’s right. So, you see, you’re the suc¬ 
cessful chap. I’m the failure. She won’t 
have me.” There was such feeling in 
his tone that Marshby’s expression soft¬ 
ened comprehendingly. He understood a 
pain that prompted even such a man to 
rash avowal. 

“ I don’t believe we’d better speak of 
her,” he said, in awkward kindliness. 

“ I want to,” returned Wilmer. “ I 
want to tell you how lucky you are.” 

Again that shade of introspective bit¬ 
terness clouded Marshby’s face. “ Yes,” 
said he, involuntarily. “ But how about 
her? Is she lucky?” 

“ Yes,” replied Jerome, steadily. “ She’s 
got what she wants. She won’t worship 
you any the less because you don’t wor- 


The Wizard's Touch 53 

ship yourself. That’s the mad way they 
have—women. It’s an awful challenge. 
You’ve got a fight before you, if you 
don’t refuse it.” 

“ God!” groaned Marshby to himself, 
“ it is a fight. I can’t refuse it.” 

Wilmer put his question without 
mercy. “ Do you want to ?” 

u I want her to be happy,” said Marsh¬ 
by, with a simple humility afar from 
cowardice. “ I want her to be safe. I 
don’t see how anybody could be safe— 
with me.” 

“ Well,” pursued Wilmer, recklessly, 
u would she be safe with me?” 

“ I think so,” said Marshby, keeping 
an unblemished dignity. “ I have thought 
that for a good many years.” 

“ But not happy ?” 

“ No, not happy. She would— We 
have been together so long.” 

“ Yes, she’d miss you. She’d die of 
homesickness. Well!” He sat contem¬ 
plating Marshby with his professional 
stare; but really his mind was opened 
for the first time to the full reason for 
Mary’s unchanging love. Marshby stood 
there so quiet, so oblivious of himself 
in comparison with unseen tilings, so 
much a man from head to foot, that he 
justified the woman’s loyal passion as 


54 Harper's Novelettes 

nothing had before. “ Shall you accept 
the consulate?” Wilmer asked, abruptly. 

Brought face to face with fact, Marsh¬ 
by’s pose slackened. He drooped per¬ 
ceptibly. “ Probably not,” he said. “ No, 
decidedly not.” 

Wilmer swore under his breath, and 
sat, brows bent, marvelling at the change 
in him. The man’s infirmity of will had 
blighted him. He was so truly another 
creature that not even a woman’s un¬ 
reasoning championship could pull him 
into shape again. 

Mary Brinsley came swiftly down the 
path, trowel in one hand and her basket 
of weeds in the other. Wilmer wondered 
if she had been glancing up from some 
flowery screen and read the story of 
that altered posture. She looked sharply 
anxious, like a mother whose child is 
threatened. Jerome shrewdly knew that 
Marshby’s telltale attitude was no un¬ 
familiar one. 

“ What have you been saying ?” she 
asked, in laughing challenge, yet with a 
note of anxiety underneath. 

“ I’m painting him in,” said Wilmer; 
but as she came toward him he turned 
the canvas dexterously. “ No,” said he, 
“no. I’ve got my idea from this. To¬ 
morrow Marshby’s going to sit.” 


The Wizard's Touch 


55 


That was all he would say, and Mary 
put it aside as one of his pleasantries 
made to fit the hour. But next day 
he set up a big canvas in the barn that 
served him as workroom, and summoned 
Marshby from his books. He came 
dressed exactly right, in his every-day 
clothes that had comfortable wrinkles in 
them, and easily took his pose. For all 
his concern over the inefficiency of his 
life, as a life, he was entirely without 
self-consciousness in his personal habit. 
Jerome liked that, and began to like 
him better as he knew him more. A 
strange illuminative process went on in 
his mind toward the man as Mary saw 
him, and more and more he nursed a 
fretful sympathy with her desire to see 
Marshby tuned up to some pitch that 
should make him livable to himself. It 
seemed a cruelty of nature that any man 
should so scorn his own company and yet 
be forced to keep it through an allotted 
span. In that sitting Marshby was at 
first serious and absent-minded. Though 
his body was obediently there, the spirit 
seemed to be busy somewhere else. 

“Head up!” cried Jerome at last, 
brutally. “ Heavens, man, don’t skulk!” 

Marshby straightened under the blow. 
It hit harder, as Jerome meant it should. 


56 Harpers Novelettes 

than any verbal rallying. Tt. sent the 
man back over his own life to the first 
stumble in it. 

“ I want you to look as if you heard 
drums and fife,” Jerome explained, with 
one of his quick smiles, that always wiped 
out former injury. 

But the flush was not yet out of 
Marshby’s face, and he answered, bitter¬ 
ly, “ I might run.” 

“ I don’t mind your looking as if 
you’d like to run and knew you couldn’t,” 
said Jerome, dashing in strokes now in 
a happy certainty. 

“ Why couldn’t I ?” asked Marshby, 
still from that abiding scorn of his 
own ways. 

“ Because you can’t, that’s all. Partly 
because you get the habit of facing the 
music. I should like—” Wilmer had 
an unconsidered way of entertaining his 
sitters, without much expenditure to 
himself; he pursued a fantastic habit of 
talk to keep their blood moving, and did 
it with the eye of the mind unswervingly 
on his work. “ If I were you, I’d do it. 
I’d write an essay on the muscular habit 
of courage. Your coward is born weak- 
kneed. lie shouldn’t spill himself all 
over the place trying to put on the 
spiritual make-up of a hero. He must 



The Wizard's Touch 


57 


simply strengthen his knees. When 
they’ll take him anywhere he requests, 
without buckling, he wakes up and finds 
himself a field-marshal. Voila!” 

“ It isn’t bad,” said Marshby, uncon¬ 
sciously straightening. “ Go ahead, Je¬ 
rome. Turn us all into field-marshals.” 

“ Not all,” objected Wilmer, seeming to 
dash his brush at the canvas with the 
large carelessness that promised his best 
work. “ The jobs wouldn’t go round. 
But I don’t feel the worse for it when I 
see the recruity stepping out, promotion 
in his eye.” 

After the sitting, Wilmer went yawn¬ 
ing forward, and with a hand on Marsh- 
by’s shoulder, took him to the door. 

“ Can’t let you look at the thing,” he 
said, as Marshby gave one backward 
glance. “That’s against the code. Till 
it’s done, no eye touches it but mine and 
the light of heaven.” 

Marshby had no curiosity. He smiled, 
and thereafter let the picture alone, even 
to the extent of interested speculation. 
Mary had scrupulously absented herself 
from that first sitting; but after it was 
over and Marshby had gone home, Wil¬ 
mer found her in the garden, under an 
apple-tree, shelling pease. He lay down 
on the ground, at a little distance, and 


Harpers Novelettes 


58 

watched her. ITe noted the quick, capable 
turn of her wrist and the dexterous mo¬ 
tion of the brown hands as they snapped 
out the pease, and he thought how emi¬ 
nently sweet and comfortable it would be 
to take this bit of his youth back to 
France with him, or even to give up 
France and grow old with her at home. 

“ Mary,” said he, “ I sha’n’t paint any 
picture of you this summer.” 

Mary laughed, and brushed back a yel¬ 
low lock with the back of her hand. 
u No,” said she, “ I suppose not. Aunt 
Celia spoke of it yesterday. She told 
me the reason.” 

“ What is Aunt Celia’s most excel¬ 
lent theory?” 

u She said Fm not so likely as I used 
to be.” 

“ No,” said Jerome, not answering 
her smile in the community of mirth 
they always had over Aunt Celia’s simple 
speech. lie rolled over on the grass and 
began to make a dandelion curl. “ No, 
that’s not it. You’re a good deal likelier 
than you used to be. You’re all possi¬ 
bilities now. I could make a Madonna 
out of you, quick as a wink. No, it’s 
because I’ve decided to paint Marsh- 
by instead.” 

Mary’s hands stilled themselves, and 


The Wizard's Touch 59 

she looked at him anxiously. “ Why are 
you doing- that?” she asked. 

“ Don’t you want the picture ?” 

“ What are you going to do with it?” 

“ Give it to you, I guess. For a wed¬ 
ding-present, Mary.” 

“You mustn’t say those things,” said 
Mary, gravely. She went on working, 
but her face was serious. 

“ It’s queer, isn’t it,” remarked W r il- 
mer, after a pause, “ this notion you’ve 
got that Marshby’s the only one that 
could possibly do? I began asking you 
first.” 

“Please!” said Mary. Her eyes were 
full of tears. That was rare for her, 
and Wilmer saw it meant a shaken poise. 
She was less certain to-day of her own 
fate. It made her more responsively ten¬ 
der toward his. lie sat up and looked 
at her. 

“ No,” he said. “No. I won’t ask 
you again. I never meant to. Only I 
have to speak of it once in a while. We 
should have such a tremendously good 
time together.” 

“ We have a tremendously good time 
now,” said Mary, the smile coming while 
she again put up the back of her hand 
and brushed her eyes. “ Wlien you’re 
good.” 


60 Harper's Novelettes 

“ When T help all the other little boys 
at the table, and don’t look at the nice 
heart-shaped cake I want myself? It’s 
frosted, and got little pink things all 
over the top. There! don’t drop the cor¬ 
ners of your mouth. If I were asked 
what kind of a world I’d like to live in, 
I’d say one where the corners of Mary’s 
mouth keep quirked up all the time. 
Let’s talk about Marshby’s picture. It’s 
going to be your Marshby.” 

“ What do you mean ?” 

“ Not Marshby’s Marshby—yours.” 

“ You’re not going to play some dread¬ 
ful joke on him ?” Her eyes were blazing 
under knotted brows. 

“Mary!” Wilmer spoke gently, and 
though the tone recalled her, she could 
not forbear at once, in her hurt pride 
and loyalty. 

“ You’re not going to put him into any 
masquerade?—to make him anything but 
what he is?” 

“ Mary, don’t you think that’s a little 
hard on an old chum ?” 

“ I can’t help it.” Her cheeks were hot, 
though now it was with shame. “ Yes, 
I am mean, jealous, envious. I see you 
with everything at your feet—” 

“Not quite everything,” said Jerome. 
“ I know it makes you hate me.” 


The Wizard's Touch 61 

“No! no!” The real woman had 
awakened in her, and she turned to him 
in a whole-hearted honesty. “ Only, they 
say you do such wizard things when you 
paint. I never saw any of your pictures, 
you know, except the ones you did of me. 
And they’re not me. They’re lovely— 
angels with women’s clothes on. Aunt 
Celia says if I looked like that I’d carry 
all before me. But, you see, you’ve al¬ 
ways been—partial to me.” 

“ And you think I’m not partial to 
Marshby ?” 

“ It isn’t that. It’s only that they say 
you look inside people and drag out 
what is there. And inside him—oh, you’d 
see his hatred of himself!” The tears 
were rolling unregarded down her face. 

“ This is dreadful,” said Wilmer, chief¬ 
ly to himself. “ Dreadful.” 

“ There!” said Mary, drearily, empty¬ 
ing the pods from her apron into the 
basket at her side. “ I suppose I’ve done 
it now. I’ve spoiled the picture.” 

“ No,” returned Jerome, thoughtfully, 
“you haven’t spoiled the picture. Really 
I began it with a very definite concep¬ 
tion of what I was going to do. It will 
be done in that way or not at all.” 

“ You’re very kind,” said Mary, hum¬ 
bly. “ I didn’t mean to act like this.” 


62 


Harpers Novelettes 


“ No,”—he spoke out of a maze of re¬ 
flection, not looking at her. “ You have 
an idea he’s under the microscope with 
me. It makes you nervous.” 

She nodded, and then caught her¬ 
self up. 

“ There’s nothing you mightn’t see,” 
she said, proudly, ignoring her previous 
outburst. “You or anybody else, even 
with a microscope.” 

“ No, of course not. Only you’d say 
microscopes aren’t fair. Well, perhaps 
they’re not. And portrait-painting is a 
very simple matter. It’s not the black 
art. But if I go on with this, you are 
to let me do it in my own way. You’re 
not to look at it.” 

“Not even when you’re not at work?” 

“ Not once, morning, noon, or night, 
till I invite you to. You were always a 
good fellow, Mary. You’ll keep your 
word.” 

“No, I won’t look at it,” said Mary. 

Thereafter she stayed away from the 
barn, not only when he was painting, 
but at other times, and Wilmer missed 
her. lie worked very fast, and made his 
plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly 
bemoaned his stinginess in cutting short 
the summer. One day, after breakfast, 
he sought out Mary again in the garden. 


The Wizard's Touch 


6 3 


She was snipping Coreopsis for the din¬ 
ner table, but she did it absently, and 
Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes. 

“ What’s the trouble ?” he asked, ab¬ 
ruptly, and she was shaken out of her 
late constraint. She looked up at him 
with a piteous smile. 

“ Nothing much,” she said. “ It 
doesn’t matter. I suppose it’s fate. He 
has written his letter.” 

“ Marshby ?” 

“ You knew he got his appointment?” 

“ No; I saw something had him by the 
heels, but he’s been still as a fish.” 

“ It came three days ago. He has de¬ 
cided not to take it. And it will break 
his heart.” 

“ It will break your heart,” Wilmer 
opened his lips to say; but he dared 
not jostle her mood of unconsidered 
frankness. 

“ I suppose I expected it,” she went on. 
“ I did expect it. Yet he’s been so dif¬ 
ferent lately, it gave me a kind of hope.” 

Jerome started. “ How has he been 
different?” he asked. 

“ More confident, less doubtful of him¬ 
self. It’s not anything he has said. It’s 
in his speech, his walk. He even carries 
his head differently, as if he had a right 
to. Well, we talked half the night last 


64 Harper's Novelettes 

night, and he went home to write the 
letter. He promised me not to mail it 
till he’d seen me once more; but nothing 
will make any difference.” 

“ You won’t beseech him?” 

“ No. He is a man. He must decide.” 

“ You won’t tell him what depends 
on it?” 

“ Nothing depends on it,” said Mary, 
calmly. “ Nothing except his own hap¬ 
piness. I shall find mine in letting him 
accept his life according to his own 
free will.” 

There was something majestic in her 
mental attitude. Wilmer felt how noble 
her maturity was to be, and told himself, 
with a thrill of pride, that he had 1 done 
well to love her. 

“ Marshby is coming,” he said. “ I 
want to show you both the picture.” 

Mary shook her head. “ Not this morn¬ 
ing,” she told him, and he could see how 
meagre canvas and paint must seem to 
her after her vision of the body of life. 
But he took her hand. 

“Come,” he said, gently; “you must.” 

Still holding her flowers, she went 
with him, though her mind abode with 
her lost cause. Marshby halted when he 
saw them coming, and Jerome had time 
to look at him. The man held himself 


Ihe Wizard's Touch 65 

wilfully erect, but his face betrayed him. 
It was haggard, smitten. He had not 
only met defeat; he had accepted it. 
Jerome nodded to him and went on be¬ 
fore them to the barn. The picture stood 
there in a favoring light. Mary caught 
her breath sharply, and then all three 
were silent. Jerome stood there forget¬ 
ful of them, his eyes on his completed 
work, and for the moment he had in it 
the triumph of one who sees intention 
brought to fruitage under perfect aus¬ 
pices. It meant more to him, that recog¬ 
nition, than any glowing moment of his 
youth. The scroll of his life unrolled 
before him, and he saw his past, as other 
men acclaimed it, running into the future 
ready for his hand to make. A great il¬ 
lumination touched the days to come. 
Brilliant in promise, they were yet bar¬ 
ren of hope. For as surely as he had been 
able to set this seal on Mary’s present, 
he saw how the thing itself would sep¬ 
arate them. He had painted her ideal 
of Marshby; but whenever in the future 
she should nurse the man through the 
mental sickness bound always to delay 
his march, she would remember this mo¬ 
ment with a pang, as something Jerome 
had dowered him with, not something ho 
had attained unaided. Marshby faced 

5 


66 Harper's Novelettes 

them from the canvas, erect, undaunted, 
a soldier fronting the dawn, expectant 
of battle, yet with no dread of its event. 
He was not in any sense alien to himself. 
He dominated, not by crude force, but 
through the sustained inward strength 
of him. It was not youth Jerome had 
given him. There was maturity in the 
face. It had its lines—the lines that are 
the scars of battle; but somehow not one 
suggested, even to the doubtful mind, a 
battle lost. Jerome turned from the 
picture to the man himself, and had his 
own surprise. Marshby was transfigured. 
He breathed humility and hope. He 
stirred at Wilmer’s motion. 

“ Am I ”—he glowed—“ could I have 
looked like that ?” Then in the poignancy 
of the moment he saw how disloyal to 
the moment it was even to hint at what 
should have been, without snapping the 
link now into the welding present. He 
straightened himself and spoke brusque¬ 
ly, but to Mary: 

“ I’ll go back and write that letter. 
Here is the one I wrote last night.” 

He took it from his pocket, tore it in 
two, and gave it to her. Then he turned 
away and walked with the soldier’s step 
home. Jerome could not look at her. 
He began moving back the picture. 


The Wizard's Touch 


67 


“There!'’ he said, “it’s finished. Bet¬ 
ter make up your mind where you’ll have 
it put. I shall be picking up my traps 
this morning.” 

Then Mary gave him his other surprise. 
Her hands were on his shoulders. Her 
eyes, full of the welling gratitude that 
is one kind of love, spoke like her lips. 

“ Oh!” said she, “do you think I don’t 
know what you’ve done ? I couldn’t take 
it from anybody else. I couldn’t let him 
take it. It’s like standing beside him 
in battle; like lending him your horse, 
your sword. It’s being a comrade. It’s 
helping him fight. And he will fight. 
That’s the glory of it!” 


The Bitter Cup 

BY CHARLES B. DE CAMP 

C LARA LEEDS sat by the open 
window of her sitting-room with 
her fancy work. Her hair was 
done up in an irreproachable style, and her 
finger-nails were carefully manicured and 
pink like little shells. She had a slender 
waist, and looked down at it from time 
to time with satisfied eyes. At the back 
of her collar was a little burst of chiffon; 
for chiffon so arranged was the fashion. 
She cast idle glances at the prospect 
from the window. It was not an al¬ 
luring one—a row of brick houses with 
an annoying irregularity of open and 
closed shutters. 

There was the quiet rumble of a car¬ 
riage in the street, and Clara Leeds 
leaned forward, her eyes following the 
vehicle until to look further would have 
necessitated leaning out of the window. 
There were two women in the carriage, 
both young and soberly dressed. To cer- 


The Bitter Cup 


69 


tain eyes they might have appeared out 
of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, 
it was obvious that it was their own. 
Clara Leeds resumed her work, making 
quick. Jerky stitches. 

“ Clara Leeds,” she murmured, as if 
irritated. She frowned and then sighed. 
“ If only — if only it was something 
else; if it only had two syllables. . . .” 
She put aside her work and went and 
stood before the mirror of her dresser. 
She looked long at her face. It was fresh 
and pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite 
of their unhappy look, were clear and 
shining. She fingered a strand of hair, 
and then cast critical sidelong glances at 
her profile. She smoothed her waist-line 
with a movement peculiar to women. 
Then she tilted the glass and regarded 
the reflection from head to foot. 

“Oh, what is it?” she demanded, dis¬ 
tressed, of herself in the glass. She took 
up her work again. 

“ They don’t seem to care how they 
look and . . . they do wear shabby gloves 
and shoes.” So her thoughts ran. “ But 
they are the Rockwoods and they don’t 
have to care. It must be so easy for 
them; they only have to visit the Day 
Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, 
and some old, poor, sick people. They 


7 ° 


Harpers Novelettes 


never have to meet them and ask them to 
dinner. They just say a few words and 
leave some money or things in a nice way, 
and they can go home and do what they 
please.” Clara Leeds’s eyes rested un- 
seeingly on the house opposite. “ It must 
be nice to have a rector ... he is such 
an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and 
dignified; just the way a minister should 
be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries 
to be jolly and get up sociables and par¬ 
lor meetings.” There were tears in the 
girl’s eyes. 

A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down¬ 
stairs to eat dinner with her father. He 
had just come in and was putting on a 
short linen coat. Clara’s mother was 
dead. She was the only child at home, 
and kept house for her father. 

“ I suppose you are all ready for the 
lawn-tennis match this afternoon?” said 
Mr. Leeds to his daughter. “ Mr. Copple 
said you were going to play with him. 
My! that young man is up to date. 
Think of a preacher getting up a lawn- 
tennis club! Why, when I was a young 
man that would have shocked people out 
of their boots. But it’s broad-minded, 
it’s broad-minded,” with a wave of the 
hand. “ I like to see a man with ideas, 
and if lawn-tennis will help to keep our 


7 i 


The Bitter Cup 

boys out of sin’s pathway, why, then, 
lawn-tennis is a strong, worthy means of 
doing the Lord’s work.” 

“Yes,” said Clara. “Did Mr. Cop- 
pie say he would call for me? It isn’t 
necessary.” 

“Oh yes, yes,” said her father; “he 
said to tell you he would be around here 
at two o’clock. I guess I’ll have to go 
over myself and see part of the athletics. 
We older folks ain’t quite up to taking 
a hand in the game, but we can give 
Copple our support by looking in on you 
and cheering on the good work.” 

After dinner Mr. Leeds changed the 
linen coat for a cutaway and started 
back to his business. Clara went up-stairs 
and put on a short skirt and tennis 
shoes. She again surveyed herself in the 
mirror. The skirt certainly hung just 
like the model. She sighed and got out 
her tennis-racquet. Then she sat down 
and read in a book of poems that she was 
very fond of. 

At two o’clock the bell jangled, and 
Clara opened the door for Mr. Copple her¬ 
self. The clergyman was of slight build, 
and had let the hair in front of his ears 
grow down a little way on his cheeks. 
He wore a blue yachting-cap, and white 
duck trousers which were rolled up and 


7 2 Harpers Novelettes 

displayed a good deal of red and black 
sock. For a moment Clara imaged a 
clear-cut face with grave eyes above a 
length of clerical waistcoat, on which 
gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended from 
a black cord. 

“ I guess we might as well go over,” 
she said. “ I’m all ready.” 

The clergyman insisted on carrying 
Clara’s racquet. “ You are looking very 
well,” he said, somewhat timidly, but with 
admiring eyes. “ But perhaps you don’t 
feel as much like playing as you look.” 

“ Oh yes, 1 do indeed,” replied Clara, 
inwardly resenting the solicitude in his 
tone. 

They set out, and the clergyman ap¬ 
peared to shake his mind free of a pre¬ 
occupation. 

“I hope all the boys will be around,” 
he said, with something of anxiety. 
“ They need the exercise. All young, 
active fellows ought to have it. I spoke 
to Mr. Goodloe and Mr. Sharp and urged 
them to let Tom and Fred Martin off 
this afternoon. I think they will do it. 
Ralph Carpenter, I’m afraid, can’t get 
away from the freight-office, but I am in 
hopes that Mr. Stiggins can take his place. 
Did you know that Mrs. Thompson has 
promised to donate some lemonade ?” 



The Bitter Cup 


73 


“ That’s very nice,” said Clara. “ It’s 
a lovely day for the match.” She was 
thinking, “ What short steps he takes!” 

After some silent walking the clergy¬ 
man said: “ I don’t believe you know. 
Miss Leeds, how much I appreciate your 
taking part in these tennis matches. 
Somehow I feel that it is asking a great 
deal of you, for I know that you have— 
er—so many interests of your own—that 
is, you are different in many ways from 
most of our people. I want you to know 
that I am grateful for the influence— 
your cooperation, you know—” 

“ Please, Mr. Copple, don’t mention it,” 
said Clara, hurriedly. “ I haven’t so 
many interests as you imagine, and I am 
not any different from the rest of the 
people. Not at all.” If there was any 
hardness in the girl’s tone the clergyman 
did not appear to notice it. They had 
reached their destination. 

The tennis-court was on the main 
street just beyond the end of the business 
section. It was laid out on a vacant lot 
between two brick houses. A wooden 
sign to one side of the court announced, 

“ First-Church Tennis Club.” 

When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at 
the court there were a number of young 
people gathered in the lot. Most of them 





74 


Harper's Novelettes 


had tennis-racquets, those of the girls 
being decorated with bows of yellow, 
black, and lavender ribbon. Mr. Copple 
shook hands with everybody, and ran over 
the court several times, testing the con¬ 
sistency of the earth. 

“ Everything is capital!” he cried. 

Clara Leeds bowed to the others, sha¬ 
king hands with only one or two. They 
appeared to be afraid of her. The finals 
in the men’s singles were between Mr. 
Copple and Elbert Dunklethorn, who was 
called “ Elbe.” He wore a very high 
collar, and as his shoes had heels, he ran 
about the court on his toes. 

Clara, watching him, recalled her 
father’s words at dinner. “ How will 
this save that boy from sin’s pathway?” 
she thought. She regarded the clergy¬ 
man; she recognized his zeal. But why, 
why must she be a part of this—what 
was it?—this system of saving people and 
this kind of people? If she could only 
go and be good to poor and unfortu¬ 
nate people whom she wouldn’t have to 
know. Clara glanced toward the street. 
“ I hope they won’t come past,” she said 
to herself. 

The set in which Clara and the clergy¬ 
man were partners was the most exciting 
of the afternoon. The space on either 


The Bitter Cup 


75 


side of the court was quite filled with 
spectators. Some of the older people 
who had come with the lengthening 
shadows sat on chairs brought from the 
kitchens of the adjoining houses. Among 
them was Mr. Leeds, his face animated. 
Whenever a ball went very high up or 
very far down the lot, he cried, “ Hoo¬ 
ray!” Clara was at the net facing the 
street, when the carriage she had ob¬ 
served in the morning stopped in view, 
and the two soberly dressed women lean¬ 
ed forward to watch the play. Clara felt 
her face burn, and when they cried 
“ game,” she could not remember whether 
the clergyman and she had won it or 
lost it. She was chiefly conscious of her 
father’s loud “ hoorays.” With the end 
of the play the carriage was driven on. 

Shortly before supper-time that eve¬ 
ning Clara went to the drug-store to buy 
some stamps. One of the Misses Rock- 
wood was standing by the show - case 
waiting for the clerk to wrap up a bottle. 
Clara noted the scantily trimmed hat 
and the sculfed gloves. She nodded in 
response to Miss Rockwood’s bow. They 
had met but once. 

“ That was a glorious game of tennis 
you were having this afternoon,” said 
Miss Rockwood, with a warm smile. “ My 


76 


Harpers Novelettes 


sister and I should like to have seen more 
of it. You all seemed to be having sueh 
a good time.” 

“ You all—” 

Clara fumbled her change. “ It’s—it’s 
good exercise,” she said. That night she 
cried herself to sleep. 

II 

The rector married the younger Miss 
Rockwood. To Clara Leeds the match 
afforded painfully pleasurable feeling. It 
was so eminently fitting; and yet it was 
hard to believe that any man could see 
anything in Miss Rockwood. His court¬ 
ship had been in keeping with the man, 
dignified and yet bold. Clara had met 
them several times together. She always 
hurried past. The rector bowed quietly. 
He seemed to say to all the world, “ I 
have chosen me a woman.” His manner 
defied gossip; there was none that Clara 
heard. This immunity of theirs distilled 
the more bitterness in her heart because 
gossip was now at the heels of her and 
Mr. Copple, following them as chickens 
do the feed-box. She knew it from such 
transmissions as, “ But doubtless Mr. 
Copple has already told you,” or, “You 
ought to know, if any one does.” 

It had been some time apparent to Clara 


The Bitter Cup 


77 


that the minister held her in a different 
regard from the other members of his 
congregation. His talks with her were 
more personal; his manner was bash¬ 
fully eager. He sought to present the 
congeniality of their minds. Mr. 
Copple had a nice taste in poetry, 
but somehow Clara, in after - reading, 
skipped those poems that he had 
read aloud to her. On several occasions 
she knew that a declaration was immi¬ 
nent. She extricated herself with a 
feeling of unspeakable relief. It would 
not be a simple matter to refuse him. 
Their relations had been peculiar, and 
to tell him that she did not love him 
would not suffice in bringing them to 
an end. Mr. Copple was odious to her. 
She could not have explained why 
clearly, yet she knew. And she would 
have blushed in the attempt to ex¬ 
plain why; it would have revealed a 
detestation of her lot. Clara had lately 
discovered the meaning of the word 
“ plebeian ”; more, she believed she com¬ 
prehended its applicableness. The word 
was a burr in her thoughts. Mr. Copple 
was the personification of the word. 
Clara had not repulsed him. You do not 
do that sort of thing in a small town. 
She knew intuitively that the clergyman 


78 


Harper's Novelettes 


would not be satisfied with the statement 
that he was not loved. She also knew 
that he would extract part, at least, of 
the real reason from her. It is more 
painful for a lover to learn that he is 
not liked than that he is not loved. 
Clara did not wish to cause him pain. 

She was spared the necessity. The 
minister fell from a scaffolding on the 
new church and was picked up dead. 

Clara’s position was pitiful. Sudden 
death does not grow less shocking be¬ 
cause of its frequency. Clara shared the 
common shock, but not the common grief. 
Fortunately, as hers was supposed to be 
a peculiar grief, she could manifest it in 
a peculiar way. She chose silence. The 
shock had bereft her of much thought. 
Death had laid a hand over the mouth of 
her mind. But deep down a feeling of 
relief swam in her heart. She gave it no 
welcome, but it would take no dismissal. 

About a week after the funeral, Clara, 
who walked out much alone, was return¬ 
ing home near the outskirts of town. 
The houses were far apart, and between 
them stretched deep lots fringed with 
flowered weeds man-high. A level sun 
shot long golden needles through the 
blanched maple-trees, and the street be¬ 
neath them was filled with lemon-colored 


The Bitter Cup 


79 


light. The roll of a light vehicle ap¬ 
proaching from behind grew distinct 
enough to attract Clara’s attention. “ It 
is Mrs. Custer coming back from the 
Poor Farm,” she thought. It was Mrs. 
Everett Custer, who was formerly the 
younger Miss Rock wood, and she was 
coming from the Poor Farm. The phae¬ 
ton came into Clara’s sight beside her at 
the curb. As she remarked it, Mrs. 
Custer said, in her thin, sympathetic 
voice, “ Miss Leeds, won’t you drive with 
me back to town? I wish you would.” 

An excuse rose instinctively to Clara’s 
lips. She was walking for exercise. But 
suddenly a thought came to her, and after 
a moment’s hesitation, she said: “ You 
are very kind. I am a little tired.” She 
got into the phaeton, and the sober horse 
resumed his trot down the yellow street. 

Clara’s thought was: u Why shouldn’t 
I accept? She is too well bred to sym¬ 
pathize with me, and perhaps, now that I 
am free, I can get to know her and show 
her that I am not just the same as all 
the rest, and perhaps I’ll get to going 
with her sort of people.” 

She listened to the rhythm of the 
horse’s hoof-beats, and was not a little 
uneasy. Mrs. Custer remarked the beauty 
of the late afternoon, the glorious sym- 


So Harper's Novelettes 

phonies of color in sky and tree, in re¬ 
sponse to which Clara said, “ Yes, indeed,” 
and, “ Isn’t it ?” between long breaths. 
She was about to essay a question con¬ 
cerning the Poor Farm, when Mrs. Custer 
began to speak, at first faltering, in a 
tone that sent the blood out of Clara’s 
face and drew a sudden catching pain 
down her breast. 

“ I—really, Miss Leeds, I want to say 
something to you and I don’t quite know 
how to say it, and yet it is something I 
want very much for you to know.” Mrs. 
Custer’s eyes looked the embarrassment 
of unencouraged frankness. “ I know it 
is presumptuous for me, almost a stranger, 
to speak to you, but I feel so deeply on 
the matter—Everett—Mr. Custer feels so 
deeply— My dear Miss Leeds, I want you 
to know what a grief his loss was to us. 
Oh, believe me, I am not trying to sym¬ 
pathize with you. I have no right to do 
that. But if you could know how Mr. 
Custer always regarded Mr. Copple! It 
might mean something to you to know 
that. I don’t think there was a man for 
whom he expressed greater admiration— 
than what, I mean, he expressed to me. 
Lie saw in him all that he lacked himself. 
I am telling you a great deal. It is diffi¬ 
cult for my husband to go among men in 


The Bitter Cap 


81 


that way—in the way he did. 'And yet 
he firmly believes that the Kingdom of 
God can only be brought to men by the 
ministers of God going among them and 
being of them. He envied Mr. Copple his 
ability to do that, to know his people as 
one of them, to take part in their—their 
sports and all that. You don’t know 
how he envied him and admired him. 
And his admiration was my admiration. 
He brought me to see it. I envied you, 
too—your opportunity to help your people 
in an intimate, real way which seemed so 
much better than mine. I don’t know 
why it is my way, but I mean going about 
as I do, as I did to-day to the Poor Parm. 
It seems so perfunctory. 

“ Don’t misunderstand me. Miss 
Leeds,” and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on 
Clara’s arm. “ There is no reason why 
you should care what Mr. Custer and I 
think about your—about our—all our 
very great loss. But I felt that it 
must be some comfort for you to know 
that we, my husband and I, who might 
seem indifferent — not that — say un¬ 
affected by what lias happened,—feel it 
very, very deeply; and to know that his 
life, which I can’t conceive of as finished, 
has left a deep, deep print on ours.” 

The phaeton was rolling through fre- 
6 


82 


Harper's Novelettes 


quented streets. It turned a corner as 
Mrs. Custer ceased speaking. 

“ I—I must get out here,” said Clara 
Leeds. “ You needn’t drive me. It is 
only a block to walk.” 

“ Miss Leeds, forgive me—” Mrs. Cus¬ 
ter’s lips trembled with compassion. 

“ Oh, there isn’t anything—it isn’t 
that—good night.” Clara backed down 
to the street and hurried off through the 
dusk. And as she went tears dropped 
slowly to her cheeks—cold, wretched tears. 


His Sister 


BY MARY APPLEWHITE BACON 

B UT you couldn’t see me leave, 
mother, anyway, unless I was 
there to go.” 

It was characteristic of the girl ad¬ 
justing her new travelling-hat before the 
dim little looking-glass that, while her 
heart was beating with excitement which 
was strangely like grief, she could give 
herself at once to her stepmother’s in¬ 
quietude and turn it aside with a jest. 

Mrs. Morgan, arrested in her anxious 
movement towards the door, stood for a 
moment taking in the reasonableness of 
Stella’s proposition, and then sank back 
to the edge of her chair. “ The train gets 
here at two o’clock,” she argued. 

Lindsay Cowart came into the room, 
his head bent over the satchel he had been 
mending. “ You had better say good-by 
to Stella here at the house, mother,” he 
suggested; “ there’s no use for you to 
walk down to the depot in the hot sun.” 


84 Harpers Novelettes 

And then he noticed that his stepmother 
had on her bonnet with the veil to it— 
she had married since his father’s death 
and was again a widow,—and, in extreme 
disregard of the September heat, was 
dressed in the black worsted of a diag¬ 
onal weave which she wore only on occa¬ 
sions which demanded some special trib¬ 
ute to their importance. 

She began smoothing out on her knees 
the black gloves which, in her nervous 
haste to be going, she had been hold¬ 
ing squeezed in a tight ball in her left 
hand. “ I can get there, I reckon,” she 
answered with mild brevity, and as if 
the young man’s words had barely grazed 
her consciousness. 

A moment later she went to the win¬ 
dow and, with her back to Lindsay, 
poured the contents of a small leather 
purse into one hand and began to count 
them softly. 

He looked up again. “ T am going to 
pay for Stella’s ticket, mother. You must 
not do it,” he said. 

She replaced the money immediately, 
but without impatience, and as acquies¬ 
cing in liis assumption of his sister’s 
future. “ You have done so much al¬ 
ready,” he apologized; but he knew that 
she was hurt, and chafed to feel that only 


His Sister 85 

the irrational thing on his part would 
have seemed to her the kind one. 

Stella turned from the verdict of the 
dim looking-glass upon her appearance to 
that of her brother’s face. As she stood 
there in that moment of pause, she might 
have been the type of all innocent and 
budding life. The delicacy of floral 
bloom was in the fine texture of her skin, 
the purple of dewy violets in her soft 
eyes; and this new access of sadness, 
which was as yet hardly conscious of 
itself, had thrown over the natural 
gayety of her young girlhood something 
akin to the pathetic tenderness which 
veils the earth in the dawn of a sum¬ 
mer morning. 

He felt it to be so, but dimly; and, 
young himself and already strained by the 
exactions of personal desires, he answered 
only the look of inquiry in her face,— 
“ Will the merchants here never learn 
any taste in dry-goods?” 

Instantly he was sick with regret. Of 
what consequence was the too pronounced 
blue of her dress in comparison with the 
light of happiness in her dear face? How 
impossible for him to be here for even 
these few hours without running counter 
to some cherished illusion or dear habit 
of speech or manner. 


86 Harpers Novelettes 

“ I tell you it’s time we were go¬ 
ing,” Mrs. Morgan appealed, her anxie¬ 
ty returning. 

“ We have thirty-five minutes yet” 
Lindsay said, looking at his watch; hut 
he gathered up the bags and umbrellas 
and followed as she moved ponderously to 
the door. 

Stella waited until they were out in the 
hall, and then looked around the room, a 
poignant tenderness in her eyes. There 
was nothing congruous between its 
shabby walls and cheap worn furniture 
and her own beautiful young life; but 
the heart establishes its own relations, and 
tears rose suddenly to her eyes and fell 
in quick succession. Even so brief a 
farewell was broken in upon by her step¬ 
mother’s call, and pressing her wet cheek 
for a moment against the discolored 
door-facing, she hurried out to join her. 

Lindsay did not at first connect the un¬ 
usual crowd in and around the little 
station with his sister’s departure; but 
the young people at once formed a circle 
around her, into which one and another 
older person entered and retired again 
with about the same expressions of 
affectionate regret and good wishes. He 
had known them all so long! But, ex¬ 
cept for the growing up of the younger 


His Sister 


37 


boys and girls during his five years of ab¬ 
sence, they were to him still what they 
had been since he was a child, affecting 
him still with the old depressing sense of 
distance and dislike. The grammarless 
speech of the men, the black-rimmed nails 
of Stella’s schoolmaster—a good classical 
scholar, but heedless as he was good- 
hearted,—jarred upon him, indeed, with 
the discomfort of a new experience. 
Upon his own slender, erect figure, 
clothed in poor but well-fitting garments, 
gentleman was written as plainly as in 
words, just as idealist was written on his 
forehead and the other features which 
thought had chiselled perhaps too finely 
for his years. 

The brightness had come back to 
Stella’s face, and he could not but feel 
grateful to the men who had left their 
shops and dingy little stores to bid her 
good-by, and to the placid, kindly-faced 
women ranged along the settees against 
the wall and conversing in low tones 
about, how she would be missed; but the 
noisy flock of young people, who with 
their chorus of expostulations, assur¬ 
ances, and prophecies seemed to make her 
one of themselves, filled him with strong 
displeasure. He knew how foolish it 
would be for him to show it, but he could 


88 Harpers Novelettes 

get no further in his effort at conceal¬ 
ment than a cold silence which was itself 
significant enough. A tall youth with 
bold and handsome features and a pretty 
girl in a showy red muslin ignored him 
altogether, with a pride which really 
quite overmatched his own; but the rest 
shrank back a little as he passed looking 
after the checks and tickets, either cut¬ 
ting short their sentences at his ap¬ 
proach or missing the point of what they 
had to say. The train seemed to him 
long in coming. 

His stepmother moved to the end of 
the settee and made a place for him at 
her side. “ Lindsay,” she said, under 
cover of the talk and laughter, and speak¬ 
ing with some difficulty, “ I hope you 
will be able to carry out all your plans 
for yourself and Stella; but while you’re 
making the money, she will have to make 
the friends. Don’t you ever interfere 
with her doing it. From what little I 
have seen of the world, it’s going to take 
both to carry you through.” 

His face flushed a little, but he recog¬ 
nized her faithfulness and did it honor. 
“ That is true, mother, and I will remem¬ 
ber what you say. But I have some 
friends,” he added, in enforced self- 
vindication, “in Vaucluse if not here.” 


His Sister 


89 


A whistle sounded up the road. She 
caught his hand with a swift accession of 
tenderness towards his youth. “ You’ve 
done the best you could, Lindsay,” she 
said. “ I wish you well, my son, I wish 
you well.” There were tears in her eyes. 

George Morrow and the girl in red fol¬ 
lowed Stella into the car, not at all dis¬ 
concerted at having to get off after the 
train was in motion. “ Don’t forget me, 
Stella,” the girl called back. “ Don’t you 
ever forget Ida Brand!” 

There was a waving of hands and 
handkerchiefs from the little station, 
aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few 
moments later the train had rounded a 
curve, shutting the meagre village from 
sight, and, to Lindsay Cowart’s thought, 
shutting it into a remote past as well. 

He arose and began rearranging their 
luggage. “ Do you want these ?” he in¬ 
quired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, 
scarlet sage, and purple petunias, and 
thinking of only one answer as possible. 

“ I will take them,” she said, as he 
stood waiting her formal consent to drop 
them from the car window. Her voice 
was quite as usual, but something in her 
face suggested to him that this going 
away from her childhood’s home might be 
a different thing to her from what he had 


9 o 


Harpers Novelettes 


conceived it to be. He caught the touch 
of tender vindication in her manner as 
she untied the cheap red ribbon which 
held the flowers together and rearranged 
them into two bunches so that the jar¬ 
ring colors might no longer offend, and 
felt that the really natural thing for her 
to do was to weep, and that she only 
restrained her tears for his sake. Sixteen 
was so young! His heart grew warm 
and brotherly towards her youth and in¬ 
experience; but, after all, how infinitely 
better that she should have cause for this 
passing sorrow. 

He left her alone, but not for long. 
He was eager to talk with her of the plans 
about which he had been writing her 
the two years since he himself had been 
a student at Vaucluse, of the future 
which they should achieve together. It 
seemed to him only necessary for him to 
show her his point of view to have her 
adopt it as her own; and he believed, 
building on her buoyancy and respon¬ 
siveness of disposition, that nothing he 
might propose would be beyond the scope 
of her courage. 

“ It may be a little lonely for you at 
first,” he told her. “ There are only a 
handful of women students at the col¬ 
lege, and all of them much older than 


His Sister 


9 i 


you; but it is your studies at last that 
are the really important thing, and I will 
help you with them all I can. Mrs. Ban¬ 
croft will have no other lodgers and there 
will be nothing to interrupt our work.” 

“ And the money, Lindsay ?” she asked, 
a little anxiously. 

“ What I have will carry us through 
this year. Next summer we can teach 
and make almost enough for the year 
after. The trustees are planning to 
establish a fellowship in Greek, and if 
they do and I can secure it—and Pro¬ 
fessor Wayland thinks I can,—that will 
make us safe the next two years until 
you are through.” 

“ And then ?” 

He straightened up buoyantly. “ Then 
your two years at Vassar and mine at 
Harvard, with some teaching thrown in 
along the way, of course. And then Eu¬ 
rope—Greece—all the great things!” 

She smiled with him in his enthusi¬ 
asm. “ You are used to such bold 
thoughts. It is too high a flight for 
me all at once.” 

“ It will not be, a year from now,” he 
declared, confidently. 

A silence fell between them, and the 
noise of the train made a pleasant ac-* 
companiment to his thoughts as he 



92 


Harper's Novelettes 

sketched in detail the work of the coming 
months. But always as a background to 
his hopes was that honorable social 
position which he meant eventually to 
achieve, the passion for which was a part 
of his Southern inheritance. Little as he 
had yet participated in any interests out¬ 
side his daily tasks, he had perceived in 
the old college town its deeply grained 
traditions of birth and custom, perceived 
and respected them, and discounted the 
more their absence in the sorry village he 
had left. Sometime when he should as¬ 
sail it, the exclusiveness of his new en¬ 
vironment might beat him back cruelly, 
but thus far it existed for him only as a 
barrier to what was ultimately precious 
and desirable. One day the gates would 
open at his touch, and he and the sis¬ 
ter of his heart should enter their right¬ 
ful heritage. 

The afternoon waned. He pointed out¬ 
side the car window. “ See how different 
all this is from the part of the State 
which we have left,” he said. “ The land¬ 
scape is still rural, but what mellowness 
it has; because it has been enriched by a 
larger, more generous human life. One 
can imagine what this whole section must 
have been in those old days, before the 
coming of war and desolation. And Yau- 


His Sister 


93 


cluse was the flower, the centre of it all!” 
Ilis eye kindled. “ Some day external 
prosperity will return, and then Vau- 
cluse and her ideals will be needed more 
than ever; it is she who must hold in 
check the commercial spirit, and domi¬ 
nate, as she has always done, the ma¬ 
terial with the intellectual.” There was 
a noble emotion in his face, reflecting: it¬ 
self in the younger countenance beside 
his own. Poor, young, unknown, their 
hearts thrilled with pride in their State, 
with the possibility that they also should 
give to her of their best when the oppor¬ 
tunity should be theirs. 

“ It is a wonderful old town,” Lindsay 
went on again. “ Even Wayland says so, 
—our Greek professor, you know.” His 
voice thrilled with the devotion of the 
hero-worshipper as he spoke the name. 
“ He is a Harvard man, and has seen the 
best of everything, and even he has felt 
the charm of the place; he told me so. 
You will feel it, too. It is just as if the 
little town and the college together had 
preserved in amber all that was finest in 
our Southern life. And now to think you 
and I are to share in all its riches!” 

His early consecration to such a pur¬ 
pose, the toil and sacrifice by which it had 
been achieved, came movingly before her; 


94 


Harper's Novelettes 

yet, mingled with her pride in him, 
something within her pleaded for the 
things which he rated so low. “ It used 
to be hard for you at home, Lindsay,” 
she said, softly. 

“Yes, it was hard.” His face flushed. 
“ I never really lived till I left there. I 
was like an animal caught in a net, like 
a man struggling for air. You can’t 
know what it is to me now to be with 
people who are thinking of something 
else than of how to make a few dollars 
in a miserable country store.” 

“ But they were good people in Bow- 
ersville, Lindsay,” she urged, with gen¬ 
tle loyalty. 

“ I am sure they were, if you say so,” 
he agreed. “ But at any rate we are done 
with it all now.” He laid his hand over 
hers. “ At last I am going to take you 
into our own dear world.” 

It was, after all, a very small world as to 
its actual dimensions, but to the brother 
it had the largeness of opportunity, and 
to Stella it seemed infinitely complex. 
She found security at first only in fol¬ 
lowing minutely the programme which 
Lindsay had laid out for her. It was his 
own as well, and simple enough. Study 
was the supreme thing; exercise came in 
as a necessity, pleasure only as the rarest 


His Sister 


95 


incident. She took all things cheerfully, 
after her nature, but after two or three 
months the color began to go from her 
cheeks, the elasticity from her step; nor 
was her class standing, though creditable, 
quite what her brother had expected it 
to be. 

Wayland detained him one day in his 
class-room. “ Do you think your sister 
is quite happy here, Cowart?” he asked. 

The boy thrilled, as he always did at 
any special evidence of interest from 
such a source, but he had never put this 
particular question to himself and had 
no reply at hand. 

“ I have never thought this absolute 
surrender to books the wisest thing for 
you,” Wayland went on; “but for your 
sister it is impossible. She was formed 
for companionship, for happiness, not for 
the isolation of the scholar. Why did 
you not put her into one of the girls’ 
schools of the State, where she would 
have had associations more suited to her 
years?” he asked, bluntly. 

Lindsay could scarcely believe that he 
was listening to the young professor 
whose scholarly attainments seemed to 
him the sum of what was most desirable 
in life. “ Our girls’ colleges are very 
superficial,” he answered; “and even if 


gC, Harper's Novelettes 

they were not, she could get no Greek in 
any of them.” 

“My dear boy,” Wayland said, “the 
amount of Greek which your sister knows 
or doesn’t know will always be a very 
unimportant matter; she has things that 
are so infinitely more valuable to give 
to the world. And deserves so much bet¬ 
ter things for herself,” he added, drawing 
together his texts for the next recitation. 

Lindsay returned to Mrs. Bancroft’s 
quiet, old-fashioned house in a sort of 
daze. “ Stella,” he said, “ do you think 
you enter enough into the social side of 
our college life?” 

“ No,” she answered. “ But I think 
neither of us does.” 

“ Well, leave me out of the count. If 
J get through my Junior year as I ought, 
I am obliged to grind; and when there is 
any time left, I feel that I must have it 
for reading in the library. But it need¬ 
n’t be so with you. Didn’t an invita¬ 
tion come to you for the reception Fri¬ 
day evening?” 

Her face grew wistful. “ I don’t care 
to go to things, Lindsay, unless you will 
go with nr-,” she said. 

Nevertheless, he had his way, and when 
once she made it possible, opportunities 
for social pleasures poured in upon her. 


His Sister 


97 


As Wayland had said, she was formed 
for friendship, for joy; and that which 
was her own came to her unsought. She 
was by nature too simple and sweet to be 
spoiled by the attention she received; 
the danger perhaps was the less because 
she missed in it all the comradeship of 
her brother, without which in her eyes 
the best things lost something of their 
charm. It was not merely personal ambi¬ 
tion which kept him at his books; the 
passion of the scholar was upon him and 
made him count all moments lost that 
were spent away from them. Sometimes 
Stella sought him as he pored over them 
alone, and putting her arm shyly about 
him, would beg that he would go with 
her for a walk, 01 a ride on the river; 
but almost always his answer was the 
same: “ I am so busy, Stella dear; if 
you knew how much I have to do you 
would not even ask me.” 

There was one interruption, indeed, 
which the young student never refused. 
Sometimes their Greek professor dropped 
in at Mrs. Bancroft’s to bring or to ask 
for a book; sometimes, with the lovely 
coming of the spring, he would join 
them as they were leaving the college 
grounds, and lead them away into some 
of the woodland walks, rich in wild 


9 8 


Harper's Novelettes 


flowers, that environed the little town. 
Such hours seemed to both brother and 
sister to have a flavor, a brightness, 
quite beyond what ordinary life could 
give. Wayland, too, must have found in 
them his own share of pleasure, for he 
made them more frequent as the months 
went by. 

It was in the early spring of her 
second year at Vaucluse that the acci¬ 
dent occurred. The poor lad who had 
taken her out in the boat was almost be¬ 
side himself with grief and remorse. 

“ We had enjoyed the afternoon so 
much/' he said, trying to tell how it had 
happened. “ I thought I had never seen 
her so happy, so gay,—but you know she 
was that always. It was nearly sunset, 
and I remember how she spoke of the light 
as we saw it through the open spaces of 
the woods and as it slanted across the 
water. Farther down the river the yellow 
jasmine was beginning to open. A beech- 
tree that leaned out over the water was 
hung with it. She wanted some, and I 
guided the boat under the branches. I 
meant to get it for her myself, but she 
was reaching up after it almost before I 
knew it. The bough that had the finest 
blossoms on it was just beyond her reach, 


His Sister 


99 


and while I steadied the boat, she pulled 
it towards her by one of the vines hang¬ 
ing from it. She must have put too much 
weight on it— 

“It all happened so quickly. I called 
to her to be careful, but while I was say¬ 
ing the words the vine snapped and she 
fell back with such force that the boat 
tipped, and in a second we were both in 
the water. I knew I could not swim, but 
I hoped that the water so near the bank 
would be shallow; and it was, but there 
was a deep hole under the roots of 
the tree.” 

lie could get no further. Poor lad! the 
wonder was that he had not been drowned 
himself. A negro ploughing in the field 
near by saw the accident and ran to his 
help, catching him as he was sinking for 
the third time. Stella never rose after 
she went down; her clothing had been en¬ 
tangled in the roots of the beech. 

Sorrow for the young life cut off so 
untimely was deep and universal, and 
sought to manifest itself in tender minis¬ 
trations to the brother so cruelly bereaved. 
But Lindsay shrank from all offices of 
sympathy, and except for seeking now 
and then Wayland’s silent companionship, 
bore his grief alone. 

The college was too poor to establish 


ioo Harper's Novelettes 

the fellowship in Greek, but the adjunct 
professor in mathematics resigned, and 
young Cowart was elected to his place, 
with the proviso that he give two months 
further study to the subject in the sum¬ 
mer school of some university. Wayland 
decided which by taking him back with 
him to Cambridge, where he showed the 
boy an admirable friendship. 

Lindsay applied himself to his special 
studies with the utmost diligence. It was 
impossible, moreover, that his new sur¬ 
roundings should not appeal to his 
tastes in many directions; but in spite 
of his response to these larger oppor¬ 
tunities, his friend discerned that the 
■wound which the young man kept so 
carefully hidden had not, after all these 
weeks, begun even slightly to heal. 

Late on an August night, impelled as 
he often was to share the solitude which 
Lindsay affected, he sought him at his 
lodgings, and not finding him, followed 
what he knew was a favorite walk with 
the boy, and came upon him half hidden 
under the shadows of an elm in the 
woods that skirted Mount Auburn. “ I 
thought you might be here,” he said, ta¬ 
king the place that Lindsay made for him 
on the seat. Many words were never 
necessary between them. 


His Sister 


IOI 


The moon was full and the sky cloud¬ 
less, and for some time they sat in silence, 
yielding to the tranquil loveliness of the 
scene and to that inner experience of 
the soul brooding over each, and more 
inscrutable than the fathomless vault 
above them. 

■ “ I suppose we shall never get used to a 
midnight that is still and at the same 
time lustrous, as this is to-night,” Way- 
land said. “ The sense of its uniqueness 
is as fresh wdienever it is spread before us 
as if we had never seen it before.” 

It was but a part of what he meant. 
He was thinking how sorrow, the wide 
sense of personal loss, was in some 
way like the pervasiveness, the voice¬ 
less speech, of this shadowed radiance 
around them. 

He drew a little nearer the relaxed and 
slender figure beside his own. “ It is of 
her you are thinking, Lindsay,” he said, 
gently, and mentioning for the first time 
the young man’s loss. “ All that you see 
seems saturated with her memory. I 
think it will always be so—scenes of ex¬ 
ceptional beauty, moments of high emo¬ 
tion, will always bring her back.” 

The boy’s response came with difficulty: 
“ Perhaps so. I do not know. I think the 
thought of her is always with me,” 


102 Harper's Novelettes 

“ If so, it should be for strength, 
for comfort,” his friend pleaded. “ She 
herself brought only gladness wherever 
she came.” 

There was something unusual in his 
voice, something that for a moment raised 
a vague questioning in Lindsay’s mind; 
but absorbed as he was in his own sadness, 
it eluded his feeble inquiry. To what 
Wavland had said he could make no reply. 

“ Perhaps it is the apparent waste of a 
life so beautiful that seems to you so in¬ 
tolerable—” He felt the strong man’s 
impulse to arrest an irrational grief, and 
groped for the assurance he desired. 
“ Yet, Lindsay, we know things are not 
wasted; not in the natural world, not in 
the world of the spirit.” But on the 
last words his voice lapsed miserably, and 
he half rose to go. 

Lindsay caught his arm and drew him 
back. “ Don’t go yet,” he said, broken¬ 
ly. “ I know you think it would help 
me if I would talk about—Stella; if I 
should tell it all out to you. I thank 
you for being willing to listen. Perhaps 
it will help me.” 

He paused, seeking for some words in 
which to express the sense of poverty 
which scourged him. Of all who had 
loved his sister, he himself was left poor- 


His Sister 


103 


est! Others had taken freely of her 
friendship, had delighted themselves in 
her face, her words, her smile, had all 
these things for memories. He had been 
separated from her, in part by the hard 
conditions of their youth, and at the last, 
when they had been together, by his own 
will. Oh, what had been her inner life 
during these last two years, when it had 
gone on beside his own, while he was too 
busy to attend? 

But the self-reproach was too bitter for 
utterance to even the kindest of friends. 
“ I thought I could tell you,” he said at 
last, “but I can’t. Oh, Professor Way- 
land,” he cried, “ there is an element in 
my grief that is peculiar to itself, that 
no one else in sorrow ever had!” 

“ I think every mourner on earth would 
say that, Lindsay.” Again the younger 
man discerned the approach of a mystery, 
but again he left it unchallenged. 

The professor rose to his feet. “ Good 
night,” he said; “ unless you will go 
back with me. Even with such moon¬ 
light as this, one must sleep.” Pie had 
dropped to that kind level of the common¬ 
place by which we spare ourselves and 
one another. 

“‘Where the love light never, never dies.’ ” 


104 Harper's Novelettes 

The hoy’s voice ringing out blithely 
through the drip and dampness of the 
winter evening marked his winding route 
across the college grounds. Lindsay Co¬ 
wart, busy at his study table, listened 
without definite effort and placed the 
singer as the lad newly come from the 
country. He could have identified any 
other of the Vaucluse students by connec¬ 
tions as slight—Marchman by his whis¬ 
tling, tender, elusive sounds, flute notes 
sublimated, heard only when the night 
was late and the campus still; others by 
tricks of voice, fragments of laughter, by 
their footfalls, even, on the narrow brick 
walk below his study window. Such the 
easy proficiency of affection. 

Attention to the lad’s singing suddenly 
was lifted above the subconscious. The 
simple melody had entangled itself in 
some forgotten association of the pro¬ 
fessor’s boyhood, seeking to marshal 
which before him, he received the full 
force of the single line sung in direct 
ear-shot. Like the tune, the words also 
became a challenge; pricked through the 
unregarded heaviness in which he was 
plying his familiar task, and demanded 
that he should name its cause. 

For him the love light of his marriage 
had been dead so long! No, not dead; 


His Sister 


io 5 

nothing so dignified, so tragic. Burnt 
down, smoldered; suffocated by the hate¬ 
ful dust of the commonplace. There was 
a touch of contempt in the effort with 
which he dismissed the matter from his 
mind and turned back to his work. And 
yet, he stopped a moment longer to think, 
for him life without the light of love 
fell so far below its best achievement ! 

The front of his desk was covered with 
the papers in mathematics over which he 
had spent his evenings for more than a 
week. Most of them had been corrected 
and graded, with the somewhat full com¬ 
ment or elucidation here and there which 
had made his progress slow. He ex¬ 
amined a half-dozen more, and then in 
sheer mental revolt against the subject, 
slipped them under the rubber bands with 
others of their kind and dropped the neat 
packages out of his sight into one of the 
drawers of the desk. Wayland’s book on 
Greece, the fruit of eighteen months’ so¬ 
journ there, had come through the mail 
on the same day when the calculus papers 
had been handed in, and he had read it 
through at once, not to be teased in¬ 
tolerably by its invitation. He had mas¬ 
tered the text, avid through the long 
winter night, but he picked it up again 
now, and for a little while studied the 


io 6 Harper's Novelettes 

sumptuous illustrations. Iiow long Way- 
land had been away from Vaucluse, how 
mtich of enrichment had come to him in 
the years since he had left! He himself 
might have gone also, to larger opportuni¬ 
ties—he had chosen to remain, held by a 
sentiment! The professor closed the book 
with a little sigh, and taking it to a 
small shelf on the opposite side of the 
room, stood it with a half-dozen others 
worthy of such association. 

Returning, he got together before him 
the few Greek authors habitually in 
hand’s reach, whether handled or not, and 
from a compartment of his desk took out 
several sheets of manuscript, metrical 
translations from favorite passages in the 
tragedists or the short poems of the An¬ 
thology. Like the rest of the Vaucluse 
professors—a mere handful they were,— 
he was straitened by the hard exactions of 
class-room work, and the book which he 
hoped sometime to publish grew slowly. 
How far he was in actual miles from the 
men who were getting their thoughts into 
print, how much farther in environment! 
Things which to them were the common¬ 
places of a scholar’s life were to him im¬ 
possible luxuries; few even of their 
books found their way to his shelves. At 
least the original sources of inspiration 


His Sister 107 

were his, and sometimes he felt that his 
verses were not without spirit, flavor. 

He took up a little volume of Theo¬ 
critus, which opened easily at the Seventh 
Idyl, and began to read aloud. Half-way 
through the poem the door opened and 
his wife entered. lie did not immediately 
adjust himself to the interruption, and 
she remained standing a few moments 
in the centre of the room. 

“ Thank you; I believe I will be seated,’’ 
she said, the sarcasm in her words care¬ 
fully excluded from her voice. 

He wondered that she should find in¬ 
terest in so sorry a game. “ I thought 
you felt enough at home in here to 
sit down without being asked,” he said, 
rising, and trying to speak lightly. 

She took the rocking-chair he brought 
for her and leaned back in it without 
speaking. Her maroon-colored evening 
gown suggested that whoever planned it 
had been somewhat straitened by econ¬ 
omy, but it did well by her rich com¬ 
plexion and creditable figure. Her fea¬ 
tures were creditable too, the dark hair a 
little too heavy, perhaps, and the expres¬ 
sion, defined as it is apt to be when one 
is thirty-five, not wholly satisfying. In 
truth, the countenance, like the gown, 
suffered a little from economy, a sparse- 


io8 Harper's Novelettes 

ness of the tilings one loves best in a 
woman’s face. Half the sensitiveness be¬ 
longing to her husband’s eyes and mouth 
would have made her beautiful. 

“ It is a pity the Barkers have such a 
bad night for their party,” Cowart said. 

“The reception is at the Biddings’ 
and again he felt himself rebuked. 

“ I’m afraid I didn’t think much about 
the matter after you told me the Dilling- 
hams were coming by for you in their 
carriage. Fortunately neither family 
holds us college people to very strict 
social account.” 

“ They have their virtues, even if they 
are so vulgar as to be rich.” 

“ Why, I believe I had just been think¬ 
ing, before you came in, that it is only 
the rich who have any virtues at all.” He 
managed to speak genially, but the con¬ 
sciousness that she was waiting for him to 
make conversation, as she had waited for 
the chair, stiffened upon him like frost. 

He cast about for something to say, 
but the one interest which he would have 
preferred to keep to himself was all that 
presented itself to his grasp. “ I have 
often thought,” he suggested, “ that if 
only we were in sight of the Gulf, our 
landscape in early summer might not be 
very unlike that of ancient Greece.” She 


Iiis Sister 109 

looked at him a little blankly, and he 
drew one of his books nearer and began 
turning its leaves. 

“ I thought you were correcting your 
mathematics papers.” 

“ I am, or have been; but I am reading 
Theocritus, too.” 

“ Well, I don’t see anything in a day 
like this to make anybody think of 
summer. The dampness goes to your 
very marrow.” 

“It isn’t the day; it’s the poetry. 
That’s the good of there being poetry.” 

She skipped his parenthesis. “ And 
you keep this room as cold as a vault.” 
Not faultfinding, but a somewhat irri¬ 
tating concern for his comfort was in 
the complaint. 

She went to the hearth and in her 
efficient way shook down the ashes from 
the grate and heaped it with coal. A 
cabinet photograph of a girl in her early 
teens, which had the appearance of hav¬ 
ing just been put there, was supported 
against a slender glass vase. Mrs. Co¬ 
wart took it up and examined it critic¬ 
ally. “ I don’t think this picture does 
Arnoldina justice,” she said. “ One of 
the eyes seems to droop a little, and the 
mouth looks sad. Arnoldina never did 
look sad.” 


no Harper's Novelettes 

They were on common ground now, and 
he could speak without constraint. “ I 
hadn’t observed that it looked sad. She 
seems somehow to have got a good deal 
older since September.” 

“ She is maturing, of course.” All a 
mother’s pride and approbation were in 
the reserve of the speech. To have put 
more definitely her estimate of the sweet 
young face would have been a clumsy 
thing in comparison. 

Lindsay’s countenance lighted up. He 
arose, and standing by his wife, looked 
over her shoulder as she held the photo¬ 
graph to the light. “ Do you know, Ger¬ 
trude,” he said, “ there is something in 
her face that reminds me of Stella?” 

“ I don’t know that I see it,” she an¬ 
swered, indifferently, replacing the photo¬ 
graph and returning to her chair. The 
purpose which had brought her to the 
room rose to her face. “ I stopped at the 
warehouse this afternoon,” she said, “ and 
had a talk with father. Jamieson really 
goes to Mobile—the first of next month. 
The place is open to you if you want it.” 

“ But, Gertrude, how should I possibly 
want it?” he expostulated. 

“You would be a member of the firm. 
You might as well be making money as 
the rest of them.” 


His Sister 


hi 


He offered no comment. 

“ It is not now like it was when you 
were made professor. The town has be¬ 
come a commercial centre and its ed¬ 
ucational interests have declined. The 
professors will always have their social 
position, of course, but they cannot hope 
for anything more.” 

“ It is not merely Vaucluse, but the 
South, that is passing into this phase. 
But economic independence has become a 
necessity. When once it is achieved, our 
people will turn to higher things.” 

“ Not soon enough to benefit you and 
me.” 

“ Probably not.” 

“ Then why waste your talents on the 
college, when the best years of your life 
are still before you?” 

“ I am not teaching for money, Ger¬ 
trude.” He hated putting into the bald 
phrase his consecration to his ideals for 
the young men of his State; he hated 
putting it into words at all; but some¬ 
thing in his voice told her that the argu¬ 
ment was finished. 

There was a sound of carriage wheels 
on the drive. He arose and began to 
assist her with her wraps. “ It is too 
bad for you to be dependent on even such 
nice escorts as the Dillinghams are,” he 


112 


Harper's Novelettes 

solaced, recovering’ himself. “ We college 
folk are a sorry lot.” 

But when she was gone, the mood for 
composition which an hour before had 
seemed so near had escaped him, and he 
put away his books and manuscript, 
standing for a while, a little chilled in 
mind and body, before the grate and 
looking at the photograph on the mantel. 
While he did so the haunting likeness 
he had seen grew more distinct and by 
degrees another face overspread that of 
his young daughter, the face of the sister 
he had loved and lost. 

With a sudden impulse he crossed the 
room to an old-fashioned mahogany secre¬ 
tary, opened its slanting lid, and unlock¬ 
ing with some difficulty a small inner 
drawer, returned with it to his desk. 
Several packages of letters tied with 
faded ribbon filled the small receptacle, 
but they struck upon him with the 
strangeness of something utterly forgot¬ 
ten. The pieces of ribbon had once held 
for him each its own association of time 
or place; now he could only remember, 
looking down upon them with tender 
gaze, that they had been Stella’s, worn in 
her hair, or at her throat or waist. Sim¬ 
ple and inexpensive he saw they were. 
Arnoldina would not have looked at them. 


His Sister 


ii3 

Overcoming something of reluctance, 
he took one of the packages from its 
place. It contained the letters he had 
found in her writing-table after her 
death, most of them written after she 
had come to Vaucluse by her stepmother 
and the friends she had left in the vil¬ 
lage. He knew there was nothing in any 
of them she would have withheld from 
him; in reading them he was merely ta¬ 
king back something from the vanished 
years which, if not looked at now, would 
perish utterly from earth. How affecting 
they were—these utterances of true and 
humble hearts, written to one equally 
true and good! His youth and hers in 
the remote country village rose before 
him; not now, as once, pinched and nar¬ 
row, but as salutary, even gracious. He 
could but feel how changed his standards 
had become since then, how different his 
measure of the great and the small of life. 

Suddenly, as he was thus borne back 
into the past, the old sorrow sprang upon 
him, and he bowed before it. The old bit¬ 
ter cry which he had been able to utter 
to no human consoler swept once more to 
his lips: “ Oh, Stella, Stella, you died be¬ 
fore 1 really knew you; your brother, 
who should have known and loved you 
best! And now it is too late, too late.” 

8 



Harper's Novelettes 


114 

He sent out as of old his voiceless call 
to one afar olf, in some land where her 
whiteness, her budding soul, had found 
their rightful place; but even as he did 
so, his thought of her seemed to be grow¬ 
ing clearer. From that far, reverenced, 
but unimagined sphere she was coming 
back to the range of his apprehension, to 
comradeship in the life which they once 
had shared together. 

He trembled with the hope of a fuller 
attainment, lifting his bowed head and 
taking another package of the letters 
from their place. Her letters! He had 
begged them of her friends in his des¬ 
perate sense of ignorance, his longing to 
make good something of all that he had 
lost in those last two years of her life. 
What an innocent life it was that was 
spread before him; and how young,— 
0I1, how young! And it was a hap¬ 
py life. He was astonished, after all 
his self-reproach, to realize how happy; 
to find himself smiling -with her in some 
girlish drollery such as used to come so 
readily to her lips. He could detect, too, 
how the note of gladness, how her whole 
life, indeed, had grown richer in the larger 
existence of Yaucluse. At last he could 
be comforted that, however it had ended, 
it was he who had made it hers. 


His Sister 


H5 

He had been reading eagerly, too eager¬ 
ly, and under the pressure of emotion 
was constrained to rise and walk the floor, 
sinking at last into his armchair and 
gazing with unseeing eyes upon the ruddy 
coals in the grate. That lovely life, 
which he had thought could never in its 
completeness be his, was rebuilt before his 
vision from the materials which she her¬ 
self had left. What he had believed to be 
loss, bitter, unspeakable even to himself, 
had in these few hours of the night be¬ 
come wealth. 

His quickened thought moved on from 
plane to plane. He scanned the present 
conditions of his life, and saw with clari¬ 
fied vision how good they were. What it 
was given him to do for his students, at 
least what he was trying to do for them; 
the preciousness of their regard; the long 
friendship with his colleagues; the asso¬ 
ciations with the little community in 
which his lot was cast, limited in some 
directions as they might be; the fair de¬ 
mesne of Greek literature in which his 
feet were so much at home; his own 
literary gift, even if a slender one; his 
dear, dear child. 

And Gertrude? Under the invigora- 
tion of his mood a situation which had 
long seemed unamenable to change re- 


n6 Harper's Novelettes 

solved itself into new and simpler propor¬ 
tions. The worthier aspects of his home 
life, the finer traits of his wife’s charac¬ 
ter, stood before him as proofs of what 
might yet be. His memory had kept no 
record of the fact that when in the first 
year of his youthful sorrow, sick for com¬ 
fort and believing her all tenderness, he 
had married her, to find her impatient of 
his grief, nor of the many times since 
when she had appeared almost wilfully 
blind to his ideals and purposes. His 
judgment held only this, that she had 
never understood him. For this he had 
seldom blamed her; but to-night he 
blamed himself. Instead of shrinking 
away sensitively, keeping the vital part 
of his life to himself and making what 
he could of it alone, he should have set 
himself steadily to create a place for it 
in her understanding and sympathy. 
Was not a perfect married love worth the 
minor sacrifices as well as the supreme 
surrender from which he believed that 
neither of them would have shrunk? 

He returned to his desk and began to 
rearrange the contents of the little 
drawer. Among them was a small sandal¬ 
wood box which had been their mother’s, 
and which Stella had prized with special 
fondness. He had never opened it since 


His Sister 


117 

her death, but as he lifted it now the 
frail clasp gave way, the lid fell back, 
and the contents slipped upon the desk. 
They were few: a ring, a thin gold 
locket containing the miniatures of their 
father and mother, a small tintype of 
himself taken when he first left home, 
and two or three notes addressed in a 
handwriting which he recognized as Way- 
land's. He replaced them with reverent 
touch, turning away even in thought 
from what he had never meant to see. 

By and by he heard in the distance the 
roll of carriages returning from the 
Fieldings’ reception. He replenished the 
fire generously, found a long cloak in the 
closet at the end of the hall, and waited 
the sound of wheels before his own door. 
“ The rain has grown heavier," he said, 
drawing the cloak around his wife as she 
descended from the carriage. Something 
in his manner seemed to envelop her. 
He brought her into the study and seated 
her before the fire. She had expected to 
find the house silent; the glow and 
warmth of the room were grateful after 
the chill and darkness outside, her hus¬ 
band’s presence after that vague sense 
of futility which the evening’s gayety 
had left upon her. 

“ I suppose I ought to tell you about 


n8 


Harpers Novelettes 


the party,” she said, a little wearily; 
“ but if you don’t mind, I will wait till 
breakfast. Everybody was there, of 
course, and it was all very fine, as we all 
knew it would be. I hope you’ve enjoyed 
your Latin poets more.” 

“ They are Greek, dear,” he said. “ I 
have been making translations from some 
of them now and then. Some day we 
will take a day off and then I’ll read 
them to you. But neither the party nor 
the poets to-night. See, it is almost 
two o’clock.” 

“ I knew it must be late. But you 
look as fresh as a child that has just 
waked from sleep.” 

“ Perhaps I have just waked.” 

They rose to go up-stairs. “ I will go 
in front and make a light in our room 
while you turn off the gas in the hall.” 

He paused for a moment after she 
had gone out and turned to a page in 
the Greek Anthology for a single stanza. 
Shelley’s translation was written in pen¬ 
cil beside it: 

Thou wert the morning star among the 
living, 

Ere thy fair light had fled; 

Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus 
giving 

New splendor to the dead. 


The Perfect Year 

BY ELEANOR A. HALLO WELL 

W HEN Dolly Leonard died, on 
the night of my debutante 
party, onr little community 
was aghast. If I live to he a thousand, 
I shall never outgrow the paralyzing 
shock of that disaster. I think that the 
girls in our younger set never fully re¬ 
covered from it. 

It was six o’clock when we got the news. 
Things had been jolly and bustling all 
the afternoon. The house was filled with 
florists and caterers, and I had gone to 
my room to escape the final responsi¬ 
bilities of the occasion. There were 
seven of us girl chums dressing in my 
room, and we were lolling round in 
various stages of lace and ruffles when 
the door-bell rang. Partly out of con¬ 
sideration for the tired servants, and 
partly out of nervous curiosity incited by 
the day’s influx of presents and bouquets, 
I slipped into my pink eider-down wrapper 


120 Harper's Novelettes 

and ran down to the door. The hall was 
startlingly sweet with roses. Indeed, the 
whole house was a perfect bower of leaf 
and blossom, and I suppose I did look 
elfish as I ran, for a gruff old workman 
peered up at me and smiled, and muttered 
something about “ pinky-posy ”—and I 
know it did not seem impertinent to me 
at the time. 

At the door, in the chill blast of the 
night, stood our little old gray postman 
with some letters in his hand. “Oh!” 
I said, disappointed, “ just letters.” 

The postman looked at me a trifle 
queerly—I thought it was my pink wrap¬ 
per,—and he said, “ Don’t worry about 
‘ just letters Dolly Leonard is dead!” 

“ Dead ?” I gasped. “ Dead ?” and I 
remember how I reeled back against the 
open door and stared out with horror- 
stricken eyes across the common to Dolly 
Leonard’s house, where every window was 
blazing with calamity. 

“ Dead ?” I gasped again. “ Dead ? 
What happened?” 

The postman eyed me with quizzical 
fatherliness. “ Ask your mother,” he 
answered, reluctantly, and I turned and 
groped my way leaden-footed up the 
stairs, muttering, “Oh, mother, mother, 
I don’t need to ask you.” 


The Perfect Year 


I 21 


When I got back to my Toom at last 
through a tortuous maze of gaping work¬ 
men and sickening flowers, three startled 
girls jumped up to catch me as I stag¬ 
gered across the threshold. I did not 
faint, I did not cry out. I just sat hud¬ 
dled on the floor rocking myself to and 
fro, and mumbling, as through a mouth¬ 
ful of sawdust: “ Dolly Leonard is dead. 
Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard 
is dead.” 

I will not attempt to describe too fully 
the scene that followed. There were 
seven of us, you know, and we were only 
eighteen, and no young person of our 
acquaintance had ever died before. In¬ 
deed, only one aged death had ever dis¬ 
turbed our personal life history, and 
even that remote catastrophe had sent 
us scampering to each other’s beds a 
whole winter long, for the individual fear 
of u seeing tilings at night.” 

“ Dolly Leonard is dead.” I can feel 
myself yet in that huddled news-heap 
on the floor. A girl at the mirror 
dropped her hand-glass with a shivering 
crash. Some one on the sofa screamed. 
The only one of us who was dressed be¬ 
gan automatically to unfasten her lace 
collar and strip oft* her silken gown, and 
I can hear yet the soft lush sound of a 


122 Harper's Novelettes 

folded sash, and the strident click of the 
little French stays that pressed too close 
on a heaving breast. 

Then some one threw wood on the 
fire with a great bang, and then more 
wood and more wood, and we crowd¬ 
ed round the hearth and scorched our 
faces and hands, but we could not get 
warm enough. 

Dolly Leonard w r as not even in our set. 
She was an older girl by several years. 
But she was the belle of the village. 
Dolly Leonard’s gowns, Dolly Leonard’s 
parties, Dolly Leonard’s lovers, were the 
envy of all womankind. And Dolly 
Leonard’s courtship and marriage were to 
us the fitting culmination of her wonder¬ 
ful career. She was our ideal of every¬ 
thing that a girl should be. She was 
good, she was beautiful, she was irresist¬ 
ibly fascinating. She was, in fact, every¬ 
thing that we girlishly longed to be in 
the revel of a ballroom or the white sanc¬ 
tity of a church. 

And now she, the bright, the joyous, 
the warm, was colder than we were, and 
would never be warm again. Never again. 
. . . And there were garish flowers down¬ 
stairs, and music and favors and ices— 
nasty shivery ices,—and pretty soon a 
brawling crowd of people would conie 


The Perfect Year 123 

and dance because I was eighteen—and 
still alive. 

Into our hideous brooding broke a 
husky little voice that had not yet 
spoken: 

“ Dolly Leonard told my big sister a 
month ago that she wasn’t a bit fright¬ 
ened, — that she had had one perfect 
year, and a perfect year was well 
worth dying for—if one had to. Of 
course she hoped she wouldn’t die, but 
if she did, it was a wonderful thing to 
die happy. Dolly was queer about it; 
I heard my big sister telling mother. 
Dolly said, ‘ Life couldn’t always be at 
high tide—there was only one high tide 
in any one’s life, and she thought it 
was beautiful to go in the full flush 
before the tide turned.’ ” 

The speaker ended with a harsh sob. 

Then suddenly into our awed silence 
broke my mother in full evening dress. 
She was a very handsome mother. 

As she looked down on our huddled 
group there were tears in her eyes, but 
there was no shock. I noticed distinctly 
that there was no shock. “ Why, girls,” 
she exclaimed, with a certain terse bright¬ 
ness, “ aren’t you dressed yet ? It’s eight 
o’clock and people are beginning to ar¬ 
rive.” She seemed so frivolous to me. 


124 Harper's Novelettes 

I remember that I felt a little ashamed 
of her. 

“ We don’t want any party,” I answer¬ 
ed, glumly. “ The girls are going home.” 

“ Nonsense!” said my mother, catch¬ 
ing me by the hand and pulling me al¬ 
most roughly to my feet. “ Go quickly 
and call one of the maids to come and 
help you dress. Angeline, I’ll do your 
hair. Bertha, where are your shoes ? 
Gertrude, that’s a beautiful gown— 
just your color. Hurry into it. There 
goes the bell. Hark! the orchestra is 
beginning.” 

And so, with a word here, a touch 
there, a searching look everywhere, 
mother marshalled us into line. I had 
never heard her voice raised before. 

The color came back to our cheeks, 
the light to our eyes. We bubbled over 
with spirits—nervous spirits, to be sure, 
but none the less vivacious ones. 

When the last hook was fastened, the 
last glove buttoned, the last curl fluffed 
into place, mother stood for an instant 
tapping her foot on the floor. She looked 
like a little general. 

“ Girls,” she said, “ there are five hun¬ 
dred people coming to-night from all 
over the State, and fully two-thirds of 
them never heard of Dolly Leonard. We 


The Perfect Year 


125 


must never spoil other people’s pleasures 
by flaunting our own personal griefs. I 
expect my daughter to conduct herself 
this evening with perfect cheerfulness 
and grace. She owes it to her guests; 
and ”—mother’s chin went high up in 
the air—“ I refuse to receive in my house 
again any one of you girls who mars my 
daughter’s debutante party by tears or 
hysterics. You may go now.” 

We went, silently berating the brutal 
harshness of grown people. We went, 
airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a 
bunch of butterflies. At the head of the 
stairs the music caught us up in a mael¬ 
strom of excitement and whirled us 
down into the throng of pleasure. And 
when we reached the drawing-room and 
found mother we felt as though we were 
walking on air. We thought it was self- 
control. We were not old enough to 
know it was mostly “ youth.” 

My debutante party was the gayest 
party ever given in our town. We seven 
girls -were like sprites gone mad. We 
were like fairy torches that kindled the 
whole throng. We flitted among the 
palms like will-o’-the-wisps. We danced 
the toes out of our satin slippers. We 
led our old boy-friends a wild chase of 
young love and laughter, and because 


126 


Harper's Novelettes 


our hearts were like frozen lead within 
us we sought, as it were, “ to warm both 
hands at the fires of life.” We trifled 
with older men. We flirted, as it were, 
with our fathers. 

My debutante party turned out a revel. 
I have often wondered if my mother was 
frightened. I don’t know what went on 
in the other girls’ brains, but mine were 
seared with the old-world recklessness— 
“ Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow 
we die.” We die! 

I had a lover—a boy lover. His name 
was Gordon. He was twenty-one years 
old, and he had courted me with boyish 
seriousness for three years. Mother had 
always pooh-poohed his love-story and 
said: “ Wait, wait. Why, my daughter 
isn’t even out yet. Wait till she’s out.” 

And Gordon had narrowed his near¬ 
sighted eyes ominously and shut his lips 
tight. “ Very well,” he had answered, “ I 
will wait till she is out—but no longer.” 

He was rich, he was handsome, he was 
well-born, he was strong, but more than 
all that he held my fancy with a certain 
thrilling tenacity that frightened me 
while it lured me. And I had always 
looked forward to my debutante party 
on my eighteenth birthday with the 
tingling realization, half joy, half fear. 


The Perfect Year 


127 

that on that day I should have to settle 
once and forever with— man. 

I had often wondered how Gordon would 
propose. He was a proud, high-strung 
boy. If he was humble, and pleaded and 
pleaded with the hurt look in his eyes 
that I knew so well, I thought I would 
accept him; and if we could get to mother 
in the crowd, perhaps we could announce 
the engagement at supper-time. It seem¬ 
ed to me that it would be a very wonder¬ 
ful thing to be engaged on one’s eight¬ 
eenth birthday. So many girls were not 
engaged till nineteen or even twenty. 
But if he was masterful and high-step¬ 
ping, as he knew so well how to be, I had 
decided to refuse him scornfully with a 
toss of my head and a laugh. I could 
break his heart with the sort of laugh I 
had practised before my mirror. 

It is a terrible thing to have a long- 
anticipated event finally overtake you. 
It is the most terrible thing of all to 
have to settle once and forever with man. 

Gordon came for me at eleven o’clock. 
I was flirting airily at the time with our 
village Beau Brummel, who was old 
enough to be my grandfather. 

Gordon slipped my little hand through 
his arm and carried me off to a lonely 
place in the conservatory. For a second 


128 Harper's Novelettes 

it seemed a beautiful relief to be out 
of the noise and the glare—and alone 
with Gordon. But instantly my realiza¬ 
tion of the potential moment rushed over 
me like a flood, and I began to tremble 
violently. All the nervous strain of the 
evening reacted suddenly on me. 

“ What’s the matter with you to¬ 
night ?” asked Gordon, a little sternly. 
“ What makes you so wild ?” he persisted, 
with a grim little attempt at a laugh. 

At his words, my heart seemed to turn 
over within me and settle heavily. It 
was before the days when we discussed 
life’s tragedies with our best men friends. 
Indeed, it was so long before that I 
sickened and grew faint at the very 
thought of the sorrowful knowledge 
which I kept secret from him. 

Again he repeated, “ What’s the mat¬ 
ter with you' 4 ” but I could find nc 
answer. I just sat shivering, with 
my lace scarf drawn close across my 
bare shoulders. 

Gordon took hold of a white ruffle on 
my gown and began to fidget with it. I 
could see the fine thoughts go flitting 
through his eyes, but when he spoke again 
it was quite commonplacely. 

“Will you do me a favor?” he asked. 
“ Will you do me the favor of marry- 


The Perfect Year 129 

ing me?” And he laughed. Good God! 
he laughed! 

“ A favor ” to marry him! And he 
asked it as he might have asked for 
a posie or a dance. So flippantly—with 
a laugh. “A favor”! And Dolly Leon¬ 
ard lay dead of her favor! 

I jumped to my feet—I was half mad 
with fear and sex and sorrow and excite* 
ment. Something in my brain snapped. 
And I struck Gordon—struck him across 
the face with my open hand. And he 
turned as white as the dead Dolly Leon¬ 
ard, and went away—oh, very far away. 

Then I ran back alone to the hall and 
stumbled into my father’s arms. 

“Are you having a good time?” asked 
my father, pointing playfully at my 
blazing cheeks. 

I went to my answer like an arrow to 
its mark. “ I am having the most won¬ 
derful time in the world,” I cried; “ 1 
have settled with man.” 

My father put back his head and 
shouted. Lie thought it was a fine joke. 
Lie laughed about it long after my party 
was over. He thought my head was 
turned. lie laughed about it long after 
other people had stopped wondering why 
Gordon went away. 

I never told any one why Gordon 


130 Harper's Novelettes 

went away. I might under certain cir¬ 
cumstances have told a girl, but it 
was not the sort of thing one could 
have told one’s mother. This is the 
first time I have ever told the story 
of Dolly Leonard’s death and my debu¬ 
tante party. 

Dolly Leonard left a little son behind 
her—a joyous, rollicking little son. His 
name is Paul Yardley. We girls were 
pleased with the initials—P. Y. They 
stand to us for “ Perfect Year.” 

Dolly Leonard’s husband has married 
again, and his wife has borne him safely 
three daughters and a son. Each one of 
my six girl chums is the mother of a 
family. Now and again in my experience 
some woman has shirked a duty. But 
I have never yet met a woman who 
dared to shirk a happiness. Duties re¬ 
peat themselves. There is 110 duplicate 
of happiness. 

I am fifty-eight years old. I have never 
married. I do not say whether I am glad 
or sorry. I only know that I have never 
had a Perfect Year. I only know that 
I have never been warm since the night 
that Dolly Leonard died. 


Editha 

DY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

T HE air was thick with the war 
•feeling, like the electricity of a 
storm which has not yet burst. 
Editha sat looking out into the hot 
spring afternoon, with her lips parted, 
and panting with the intensity of the 
question whether she could let him go. 
She had decided that she could not let 
him stay, when she saw him at the end 
of the still leafless avenue, making slow¬ 
ly up toward the house, with his head 
down, and his figure relaxed. She ran 
impatiently out on the veranda, to the 
edge of the steps, and imperatively 
demanded greater haste of him with 
her will before she called aloud to 
him, “ George!” 

lie had quickened his pace in mystical 
response to her mystical urgence, before 
he could have heard her; now he looked 
up and answered, “Well?” 

“ Oh, bow united we are!” she exulted, 


132 Harper's Novelettes 

and then she swooped down the steps to 
him. “What is it?” she cried. 

“ It’s war,” he said, and he pulled her 
up to him, and kissed her. 

She kissed him back intensely, but ir¬ 
relevantly, as to their passion, and ut¬ 
tered from deep in her throat, “ How 
glorious!” 

“ It’s war,” he repeated, without con¬ 
senting to her sense of it; and she did 
not know just what to think at first. 
She never knew what to think of him; 
that made his mystery, his charm. All 
through their courtship, v 7 hich w T as con¬ 
temporaneous with the growth of the 
war feeling, she had been puzzled by 
his want of seriousness about it. He 
seemed to despise it even more than 
he abhorred it. She could have un¬ 
derstood his abhorring any sort of 
bloodshed; that would have been a sur¬ 
vival of his old life when he thought 
he would be a minister, and before he 
changed and took up the law. But 
making light of a cause so high and 
noble seemed to show a want of earnest¬ 
ness at the core of his being. Not 
but that she felt herself able to cope 
with a congenital defect of that sort, 
and make his love for her save him 
from himself. Now perhaps the miracle 


Editha 


133 


was already wrought in him. In the 
presence of the tremendous fact that he 
announced, all triviality seemed to have 
gone out of him; she began to feel that. 
He sank down on the top step, and 
wiped his forehead with his handker¬ 
chief, while she poured out upon him 
her question of the origin and authen¬ 
ticity of his news. 

All the while, in her duplex emotion- 
ing, she was aware that now at the very 
beginning she must put a guard upon 
herself against urging him, by any 
word or act, to take the part that her 
whole soul willed him to take, for the 
completion of her ideal of him. He was 
very nearly perfect as he was, and he 
must be allowed to perfect himself. But 
he was peculiar, and he might very well 
be reasoned out of his peculiarity. Be¬ 
fore her reasoning went her emotioning: 
her nature pulling upon his nature, her 
womanhood upon his manhood, without 
her knowing the means she was using 
to the end she was willing. She had 
always supposed that the man who won 
her would have done something to win 
her; she did not know what, but some¬ 
thing. George Gearson had simply ask¬ 
ed her for her love, on the way home 
from a concert, and she gave her 


134 


Harpers Novelettes 


love to him, -without, as it were, think¬ 
ing, But now, it flashed upon her, if 
he could do something worthy to have 
won her—be a hero, her hero—it would 
be even better than if he had done it be¬ 
fore asking her; it would be grander. 
Besides, she had believed in the war 
from the beginning. 

“ But don’t you see, dearest,” she said, 
“ that it wouldn’t have come to this, if 
it hadn’t been in the order of Provi¬ 
dence? And I call any war glorious 
that is for the liberation of people who 
have been struggling for years against 
the crudest oppression. Don’t you think 
so too?” 

“ I suppose so,” he returned, languidly. 
“ But war! Is it glorious to break the 
peace of the world?” 

“ That ignoble peace! It was no 
peace at all, with that crime and shame 
at our very gates.” She was conscious 
of parroting the current phrases of the 
newspapers, but it was no time to pick 
and choose her words. She must sacri¬ 
fice anything to the high ideal she had 
for him, and after a good deal of rapid 
argument she ended with the climax: 
“ But now it doesn’t matter about the 
how or why. Since the war has come, 
all that is gone. There are no two sides. 


Editha 


T 35 


any more. There is nothing now but 
our country.” 

lie sat with his eyes closed and his 
head leant back against the veranda, and 
he said with a vague smile, as if musing 
aloud, “ Our country—right or wrong.” 

“Yes, right or wrong!” she returned 
fervidly. “ I’ll go and get you some 
lemonade.” She rose rustling, and 
whisked away; when she came back with 
two tall glasses of clouded liquid, on a 
tray, and the ice clucking in them, he 
still sat as she had left him, and she 
said as if there had been no interrup¬ 
tion: “But there is no question of 
wrong in this case. I call it a sacred 
war. A war for liberty, and humanity, 
if ever there was one. And I know you 
will see it just as I do, yet.” 

He took half the lemonade at a gulp, 
and he answered as he set the glass down: 
“ I know you always have the highest 
ideal. When I differ from you, I ought 
to doubt myself.” 

A generous sob rose in Editha’s throat 
for the humility of a man, so very nearly 
perfect, who was willing to put himself 
below her. 

Besides, she felt that he was never 
so near slipping through her fingers as 
when he took that meek way. 


136 


Harpers Novelettes 


“You shall not say that! Only, for 
once I happen to be right.” She seized 
his hand in her two hands, and poured 
her soul from her eyes into his. “ r Wt, 
you think so ?” she entreated him. 

He released his hand and dra :k the 
rest of his lemonade, and she added, 
“Have mine, too,” but he shook his 
head in answering, “ I’ve no business to 
think so, unless I act so, too. 

Her heart stopped a bear before it 
pulsed on with leaps that she I fit in her 
neck. She had noticed that strange 
thing in men; they seemed to feel bound 
to do what they believed, and not think 
a thing was finished when they said it, 
as girls did. She knew what was in 
his mind, but she pretended not, and 
she said, “ Oh, I am not sure.” 

He went on as if to himself without 
apparently heeding her. “ There’s only 
one way of proving one’s faith in a 
tiling like this.” 

She could not say that she understood, 
but she did understand. 

He went on again. “ If I believed— 
if I felt as you do about this war— Do 
you wish me to feel as you do?” 

Now she was really not sure; so 
she said, “ George, I don’t know what 
you mean.” 





Editha 


i 37 


He seemed to muse away from her as 
before. “ There is a sort of fascination 
in it. I suppose that at the bottom of 
his heart every man would like at times 
to have his courage tested; to see how 
he would act.” 

“ How can you talk in that ghastly 
way!” 

“ It is rather morbid. Still, that’s 
what it comes to, unless you’re swept 
away by ambition, or driven by convic¬ 
tion. I haven’t the conviction or the 
ambition, and the other thing is what 
it comes to with me. I ought to have 
been a preacher, after all; then I couldn’t 
have asked it of myself, as I must, now 
I’m a lawyer. And you believe it’s a 
holy war, Editha?” he suddenly address¬ 
ed her. “ Or, I know you do! But you 
wish me to believe so, too ?” 

She hardly knew whether he was 
mocking or not, in the ironical way 
he always had with her plainer mind. 
But the only thing was to be outspoken 
with him. 

“ George, I wish you to believe what¬ 
ever you think is true, at any and every 
cost. If I’ve tried to talk you into any¬ 
thing, I take it all back.” 

“ Oh, I know that, Editha. I know 
how sincere you are, and how— I wish 


138 Harper's Novelettes 

I had your undoubting spirit ! I’ll think 
it over; I’d like to believe as you do. 
But I don’t, now; I don’t, indeed. It 
isn’t this war alone; though this seems 
peculiarly wanton and needless; but it’s 
every war—so stupid; it makes me sick. 
Why shouldn’t this thing have been set¬ 
tled reasonably?” 

“ Because,” she said, very throatily 
again, “ God meant it to be war.” 

“You think it was God? Yes, I sup¬ 
pose that is what people will say.” 

“ Do you suppose it would have been 
war if God hadn’t meant it?” 

“ I don’t know. Sometimes it seems 
as if God had put this world into men’s 
keeping to work it as they pleased.” 

“ Now, George, that is blasphemy.” 

“ Well, I won’t blaspheme. I’ll try 
to believe in your pocket Providence,” he 
said, and then he rose to go. 

“ Why don’t you stay to dinner ?” 
Dinner at Balcom’s Works was at one 
o’clock. 

“ I’ll come back to supper, if you’ll 
let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a 
convert.” 

“ Well, you may come back, on that 
condition.” 

“ All right. If I don’t come, you’ll 
understand.” 



Editha 


139 


Tie went away without kissing her, 
and she felt it a suspension of their en¬ 
gagement. It all interested her intense¬ 
ly ; she was undergoing a tremendous 
experience, and she was being equal to 
it. While she stood looking after him, 
her mother came out through one of the 
long windows, on to the veranda, with 
a catlike softness and vagueness. 

“Why didn’t he stay to dinner?” 

“ Because—because—war has been de¬ 
clared,” Editha pronounced, without 
turning. 

Her mother said, “Oh, my!” and then 
said nothing more until she had sat 
down in one of the large Shaker 
chairs, and rocked herself for some time. 
Then she closed whatever tacit passage 
of thought there had been in her mind 
with the spoken words, “ Well, I hope 
he won’t go.” 

“ And 1 hope he will," the girl said, 
and confronted her mother with a 
stormy exaltation that would have 
frightened any creature less unimpres¬ 
sionable than a cat. 

Her mother rocked herself again for 
an interval of cogitation. What she ar¬ 
rived at in speech was, “ Well, I guess 
you’ve done a wicked thing, Editha 
Balcoin.” 


140 Harpers Novelettes 

The girl said, as she passed indoors 
through the same window her mother 
had come out by, “ I haven’t done any¬ 
thing—yet.” 

In her room, she put together all her 
letters and gifts from Gearson, down to 
the withered xoetals of the first flower 
he had offered, with that timidity of his 
veiled in that irony of his. In the heart 
of the packet she enshrined her engage¬ 
ment ring which she had restored to the 
pretty box he had brought it her in. 
Then she sat down, if not calmly yet 
strongly, and wrote: 

“ George : I understood—when you left 
me. But I think we had better empha¬ 
size your meaning that if we cannot be 
one in everything w r e had better be one 
in nothing. So I am sending these 
things for your keeping till you have 
made up your mind. 

“ I shall always love you, and therefore 
I shall never marry any one else. But 
the man I marry must love his country 
first of all, and be able to say to me, 

‘ I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honor more.’ 

“ There is no honor above America 


Editha 


141 


with me. In this great hour there is no 
other honor. 

“ Your heart will make my words clear 
to you. I had never expected to say so 
much, but it has come upon me that I 
must say the utmost. Editha.” 

She thought she had worded her letter 
well, worded it in a way that could not 
be bettered; all had been implied and 
nothing expressed. 

She had it ready to send with the 
packet she had tied with red, white, and 
blue ribbon, when it occurred to her that 
she was not just to him, that she was 
not giving him a fair chance. He had 
said he would go and think it over, 
and she was not waiting. She was 
pushing, threatening, compelling. That 
was not a woman’s part. She must 
leave him free, free, free. She could 
not accept for her country or herself a 
forced sacrifice. 

In writing her letter she had satisfied 
the impulse from which it sprang; she 
could well afford to wait till he had 
thought it over. She put the packet and 
the letter by, and rested serene in the 
consciousness of having done what was 
laid upon her by her love itself to do, 
and yet used patience, mercy, justice. 


142 


Harper's Novelettes 


She had her reward. Gearson did not 
come to tea, but she had given him till 
morning, when, late at night there came 
lip from the village the sound of a fife and 
drum with a tumult of voices, in shout¬ 
ing, singing, and laughing. The noise 
drew nearer and nearer; it reached the 
street end of the avenue; there it si¬ 
lenced itself, and one voice, the voice 
she knew best, rose over the silence. It 
fell; the air was filled with cheers; the 
fife and drum struck up, with the shout¬ 
ing, singing, and laughing again, but 
now retreating; and a single figure came 
hurrying up the avenue. 

She ran down to meet her lover and 
clung to him. He was very gay, and he 
put his arm round her with a boisterous 
laugh. “ Well, you must call me Cap¬ 
tain, now; or Cap, if you prefer; that’s 
what the boys call me. Yes, we’ve had 
a meeting at the town hall, and every¬ 
body has volunteered; and they selected 
me for captain, and I’m going to the war, 
the big war, the glorious war, the holy 
war ordained by the pocket Providence 
that blesses butchery. Come along; let’s 
tell the whole family about it. Call them 
from their downy beds, father, mother, 
Aunt Hitty, and all the folks!” 

But when they mounted the veranda 


Editha 


143 


steps he did not wait for a larger au¬ 
dience ; he poured the story out upon 
Editha alone. 

“ There was a lot of speaking, and 
then some of the fools set up a shout for 
me. It was all going one way, and I 
thought it would be a good joke to 
sprinkle a little cold water on them. But 
you can’t do that with a crowd that 
adores you. The first thing I knew I 
was sprinkling hell-fire on them. * Cry 
havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.’ 
That was the style. Now that it had 
come to the fight, there were no two par¬ 
ties ; there was one country, and the thing 
was to fight the fight to a finish as quick 
as possible. I suggested volunteering 
then and there, and I wrote my name 
first of all on the roster. Then they 
elected me—that’s all. I wish I had some 
ice-water!” 

She left him walking up and down the 
veranda, while she ran for the ice-pitcher 
and a goblet, and when she came back 
he was still walking up and down, shout¬ 
ing the story lie had told her to her father 
and mother, who had come out more 
sketchily dressed than they commonly 
were by day. He drank goblet after gob¬ 
let of the ice-water without noticing who 
was giving it, and kept on talking, and 


144 Harper's Novelettes 

laughing through his talk wildly. “ It’s 
astonishing,” he said, “ how well the 
worse reason looks when you try to make 
it appear the better. Why, I believe I 
■was the first convert to the war in that 
crowd to-night! I never thought I should 
like to kill a man; but now, I shouldn’t 
care; and the smokeless powder lets you 
see the man drop that you kill. It’s all 
for the country! What a thing it is to 
have a country that cant be wrong, but 
if it is, is right anyway!” 

Editha had a great, vital thought, an 
inspiration. She set down the ice-pitcher 
on the veranda floor, and ran up-stairs 
and got the letter she had written him. 
When at last he noisily bade her father 
and mother, “ Well, good night. I for¬ 
got I woke you up; I sha’n’t want any 
sleep myself,” she followed him down the 
avenue to the gate. There, after the 
whirling words that seemed to fly away 
from her thoughts and refuse to serve 
them, she made a last effort to solem¬ 
nize the moment that seemed so crazy, 
and pressed the letter she had written 
upon him. 

“What’s this?” he said. “Want me 
to mail it?” 

“ No, no. It’s for you. I wrote it 
after you went this morning. Keep it— 


Editha 


i45 


keep it—and read it sometime—” She 
thought, and then her inspiration came: 
“ Read it if ever you doubt what you’ve 
done, or fear that I regret your having 
done it. Read it after you’ve started.” 

They strained each other in embraces 
that seemed as ineffective as their words, 
and he kissed her face with quick, hot 
breaths that were so unlike him, that 
made her feel as if she had lost her old 
lover and found a stranger in his place. 
The stranger said, “ What a gorgeous 
flower you are, with your red hair, 
and your blue eyes that look black now, 
and your face with the color painted 
out by the white moonshine! Let me 
hold you under my chin, to see whether I 
love blood, you tiger-lily!” Then he 
laughed Gearson’s laugh, and released 
her, scared and giddy. Within her wil¬ 
fulness she had been frightened by a 
sense of subtler force in him, and 
mystically mastered as she had never 
been before. 

She ran all the way back to the house, 
and mounted the steps panting. Her 
mother and father were talking of the 
great affair. Her mother said: “Wa’n’t 
Mr. Gearson in rather of an excited 
state of mind ? Didn’t you think he 
acted curious?” 

10 


146 Harper’s Novelettes 

“ Well, not for a man who’d just been 
elected captain and had to set ’em up for 
the whole of Company A,” her father 
chuckled back. 

“ What in the world do you mean, Mr. 
Balcom ? Oh! There’s Editha!” She 
offered to follow the girl indoors. 

“ Don’t come, mother!” Editha called, 
vanishing. 

Mrs. Balcom remained to reproach her 
husband. “ I don’t see much of any¬ 
thing to laugh at.” 

“ Well, it’s catching. Caught it from 
Gearson. I guess it won’t be much of a 
war, and I guess Gearson don’t think 
so, either. The other fellows will back 
down as soon as they see we mean it. I 
wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. I’m 
going back to bed, myself.” 

Gearson came again next afternoon, 
looking pale, and rather sick, but quite 
himself, even to his languid irony. “ I 
guess I’d better tell you, Editha, that I 
consecrated myself to your god of bat¬ 
tles last night by pouring too many liba¬ 
tions to him down my own throat. But 
I’m all right, now. One has to carry off 
the excitement, somehow.” 

“ Promise me,” she commanded, “ that 
you’ll never touch it again 1” 



Editha 


147 


“What! Not let the cannikin clink? 
Not let the soldier drink? Well, I 
promise.” 

“You don’t belong to yourself now; 
you don’t even belong to me. You be¬ 
long to your country, and you have a 
sacred charge to keep yourself strong 
and well for your country’s sake. I have 
been thinking, thinking all night and all 
day long.” 

“ You look as if you had been crying 
a little, too,” he said with his queer smile. 

“ That’s all past. I’ve been thinking, 
and worshipping you. Don’t you sup¬ 
pose I know all that you’ve been through, 
to come to this? I’ve followed you every 
step from your old theories and opinions.” 

“ Well, you’ve had a long row to hoe.” 

“ And I know you’ve done this from 
the highest motives—” 

“ Oh, there won’t be much pettifog¬ 
ging to do till this cruel war is—” 

“ And you haven’t simply done it 
for my sake. I couldn’t respect you if 
you had.” 

“ Well, then we’ll say I haven’t. A 
man that hasn’t got his own respect in¬ 
tact wants the respect of all the other 
people he can corner. But we won’t go 
into that. I’m in for the thing now, and 
we’ve got to face our future. My idea 


148 Harper's Novelettes 

is that this isn't going to be a very pro¬ 
tracted struggle; we shall just scare the 
enemy to death before it comes to a 
fight at all. But we must provide for 
contingencies, Editha. If anything hap¬ 
pens to me—” 

“ Oh, George!” She clung to him 
sobbing. 

“ I don’t want you to feel foolishly 
bound to my memory. I should hate 
that, wherever I happened to be.” 

“ I am yours, for time and eternity— 
time and eternity.” She liked the words; 
they satisfied her famine for phrases. 

“Well, say eternity; that’s all right; 
but time’s another thing; and I’m talking 
about time. But there is something! 
My mother! If anything happens—” 

She winced, and he laughed. “ You’re 
not the bold soldier-girl of yesterday!” 
Then he sobered. “ If anything happens, 
I want you to help my mother out. She 
won’t like my doing this thing. She 
brought me up to think war a fool thing 
as well as a bad thing. My father was in 
the civil war; all through it; lost his arm 
in it.” She thrilled with the sense of 
the arm round her; what if that should 
be lost? He laughed as if divining her: 
“ Oh, it doesn’t run in the family, as far 
as I know!” Then he added, gravely. 





Edrtha 


149 


« He came home with misgivings about 
war, and they grew on him. I guess he 
and mother agreed between them that 
I was to be brought up in his final mind 
about it; but that was before my time. 
I only knew him from my mother’s re¬ 
port of him and his opinions; I don’t 
know whether they were hers first; but 
they were hers last. This will be a 
blow to her. I shall have to write and 
tell her—” 

He stopped, and she asked, “Would 
you like me to write too, George?” 

“ I don’t believe that would do. No, 
I’ll do the writing. She’ll understand a 
little if I say that I thought the way to 
minimize it was to make war on the 
largest possible scale at once—that I felt 
I must have been helping on the war 
somehow if I hadn’t helped keep it 
from coming, and I knew I hadn’t; when 
it came, I had no right to stay out of it.” 

Whether his sophistries satisfied him 
or not, they satisfied her. She clung to 
his breast, and whispered, with closed 
eyes and quivering lips, “Yes, yes, yes!” 

“ But if anything should happen, you 
might go to her, and see what you could 
do for her. You know? It’s rather far 
off; she can’t leave her chair—” 

“ Oh, I’ll go, if it’s the ends of the 


150 Harpers Novelettes 

earth! But nothing will happen! Noth¬ 
ing can! I—” 

She felt herself lifted with liis rising, 
and Gearson was saying, with his arm 
still round her, to her father: “ Well, 
we’re off at once, Mr. Balcom. We’re 
to be formally accepted at the capital, 
and then bunched up with the rest some¬ 
how, and sent into camp somewhere, and 
got to the front as soon as possible. We 
all want to be in the van, of course; 
we’re the first company to report to the 
Governor. I came to tell Editha, but I 
hadn’t got round to it.” 

She saw him again for a moment at 
the capital, in the station, just before 
the train started southward with his regi¬ 
ment. He looked well, in his uniform, 
and very soldierly, but somehow girlish, 
too, with his clean-shaven face and slim 
figure. The manly eyes and the strong 
voice satisfied her, and his preoccupation 
with some unexpected details of duty 
flattered her. Other girls were weeping, 
but she felt a sort of noble distinction 
in the abstraction with which they part 
ed. Only at the last moment he said, 
“ Don’t forget my mother. It mayn’t be 
such a walk-over as I supposed,” and he 
laughed at the notion. 





Editha 


151 

He waved his hand to her, as the train 
moved off—she knew it among a score of 
hands that were waved to other girls 
from the platform of the car, for it 
held a letter which she knew was hers. 
Then he went inside the car to read it, 
doubtless, and she did not see him again. 
But she felt safe for him through the 
strength of what she called her love. 
What she called her God, always speak¬ 
ing the name in a deep voice and with the 
implication of a mutual understanding, 
would watch over him and keep him and 
bring him back to her. If with an empty 
sleeve, then he should have three arms in¬ 
stead of two, for both of hers should be 
his for life. She did not see, though, why 
she should always be thinking of the arm 
his father had lost. 

There were not many letters from him, 
but they were such as she could have 
wished, and she put her whole strength 
nto making hers such as she imagined 
he could have wished, glorifying and 
supporting him. She wrote to his motli- 
1 , but the brief answer she got was mere- 
!; to the effect that Mrs. Gearson was 
a it well enough to write herself, and 
hanking her for her letter by the hand 
of some one who called herself “ Yrs 
t uly, Mrs. W. J. Andrews.” 


152 Harper’s Novelettes 

Editha determined not to be hurt, but 
to write again quite as if the answer had 
been all she expected. But before it 
seemed as if she could have written, there 
came news of the first skirmish, and in 
the list of the killed which was tele¬ 
graphed as a trifling loss on our side, 
was Gearson’s name. There was a fran¬ 
tic time of trying to make out that it 
might be, must be, some other Gearson; 
but the name, and the company and the 
regiment, and the State were too definite¬ 
ly given. 

Then there was a lapse into depths 
out of which it seemed as if she never 
could rise again; then a lift into clouds 
far above all grief, black clouds, that 
blotted out the sun, but where she soared 
with him, with George, George! She 
had the fever that she expected of her¬ 
self, but she did not die in it; she was 
not even delirious, and it did not last 
long. When she was well enough to leave 
her bed, her one thought was of George’s 
mother, of his strangely worded wish that 
she should go to her and see what she 
could do for her. In the exaltation of 
the duty laid upon her—it buoyed her 
up instead of burdening her—she rap¬ 
idly recovered. 

Her father went with her on the long 


Editha 


J 53 


railroad journey from northern New 
York to western Iowa; he had business 
out at Davenport, and he said he could 
just as well go then as any other time; 
and he went with her to the little country 
town where George’s mother lived in a 
little house on the edge of illimitable 
corn-fields, under trees pushed to a top 
of the rolling prairie. George’s father 
had settled there after the civil war, as 
so many other old soldiers had done; but 
they were Eastern people, and Editha 
fancied touches of the East in the June 
rose overhanging the front door, and the 
garden with early summer flowers stretch¬ 
ing from the gate of the paling fence. 

It was very low inside the house, and 
so dim, with the closed blinds, that they 
could scarcely see one another: Editha 
tall and black in her crapes which filled 
the air with the smell of their dyes; her 
father standing decorously apart with his 
hat on his forearm, as at funerals; a 
woman rested in a deep armchair, and 
the woman who had let the strangers in 
stood behind the chair. 

The seated woman turned her head 
round and up, and asked the woman be¬ 
hind her chair, “ Who did you say?” 

Editha, if she had done what she ex¬ 
pected of herself, would have gone down 


154 Harper's Novelettes 

on her knees at the feet of the seated fig¬ 
ure and said, “ I am George’s Editha,” 
for answer. 

But instead of her own voice she heard 
that other woman’s voice, saying, “ Well, 
I don’t know as I did get the name just 
right. I guess I’ll have to make a little 
more light in here,” and she went and 
pushed two of the shutters ajar. 

Then Editha’s father said in his pub¬ 
lic will-now-address-a-few-remarks tone, 
u My name is Balcom, ma’am; Junius H. 
Balcom, of Balcom’s Works, New York; 
my daughter—” 

u Oh!” The seated woman broke in, 
with a powerful voice, the voice that al¬ 
ways surprised Editha from Gearson’s 
slender frame. “ Let me see you! Stand 
round where the light can strike on your 
face,” and Editha dumbly obeyed. “ So, 
you’re Editha Balcom,” she sighed. 

“ Yes,” Editha said, more like a culprit 
than a comforter. 

“What did you come for?” 

Editha’s face quivered, and her knees 
shook. “ I came — because — because 
George—” She could go no farther. 

“ Yes,” the mother said, “ he told me 
he had asked you to come if he got killed. 
You didn’t expect that, I suppose, when 
you sent him.” 





Editha 


T 55 


“ I would rather have died myself than 
done it!” Editha said with more truth 
in her deep voice than she ordinarily 
found in it. “ I tried to leave him free—” 

“ Yes, that letter of yours, that came 
back with his other things, left him free.” 

Editha saw now where George’s irony 
came from. 

“ It was not to be read before—unless 
—until— I told him so,” she faltered. 

“ Of course, he wouldn’t read a letter 
of yours, under the circumstances, till 
he thought you wanted him to. Been 
sick?” the woman abruptly demanded. 

“ Very sick,” Editha said, with self-pity. 

“Daughter’s life,” her father inter¬ 
posed, “ was almost despaired of, at 
one time.” 

Mrs. Gearson gave him no heed. “ I 
suppose you would have been glad to die, 
such a brave person as you! I don’t be¬ 
lieve he was glad to die. He was always 
a timid boy, that way; he was afraid of 
a good many things; but if he was afraid 
lie did what he made up his mind to. I 
suppose he made up his mind to go, but 
I knew what it cost him, by what it cost 
me when I heard of it. I had been 
through one war before. When you 
sent him you didn’t expect he would 
get killed.” 



156 Harpers Novelettes 

The voice seemed to compassionate 
Editha, and it was time. “ No/’ she 
huskily murmured. 

“ No, girls don’t; women don’t, when 
they give their men up to their country. 
They think they’ll come marching back, 
somehow, just as gay as they went, or 
if it’s an empty sleeve, or even an empty 
pantaloon, it’s all the more glory, and 
they’re so much the prouder of them, 
poor things.” 

The tears began to run down Editha’s 
face; she had not wept till then; but it 
was now such a relief to be understood 
that the tears came. 

“ No, you didn’t expect him to get 
killed,” Mrs. Gearson repeated in a voice 
which was startlingly like George’s again. 
“ You just expected him to kill some one 
else, some of those foreigners, that weren’t 
there because they had any say about it, 
but because they had to be there, poor 
wretches—conscripts, or whatever they 
call ’em. You thought it would be all 
right for my George, your George, to kill 
the sons of those miserable mothers and 
the husbands of those girls that you 
would never see the faces of.” The 
woman lifted her powerful voice in a 
psalmlike note. “ I thank my God he 
didn’t live to do it! I thank my God 



Editha 


157 


they killed him first, and that he ain’t 
livin’ with their blood on his hands!” 
She dropped her eyes which she had 
raised with her voice, and glared at 
Editha. “ What you got that black on 
for?” She lifted herself by her power¬ 
ful arms so high that her helpless body 
seemed to hang limp its full length. 
“ Take it off, take it off, before I tear it 
from your back!” 

The lady who was passing the sum¬ 
mer near Balcom’s Works was sketch¬ 
ing Editha’s beauty, which lent itself 
wonderfully to the effects of a color¬ 
ist. It had come to that confidence 
which is rather apt to grow between 
artist and sitter, and Editha had told 
her everything. 

“ To think of your having such a 
tragedy in your life!” the lady said. She 
added: “ I suppose there are people who 
feel that way about war. But when you 
consider how much this war has done for 
the country! I can’t understand such 
people, for my part. And when you had 
come all the way out there to console 
her—got up out of a sick bed ! Well!” 

“ I think,” Editha said, magnanimous¬ 
ly, “she wasn’t quite in her right mind; 
and so did papa.” 


158 Harper's Novelettes 

“ Yes,” the lady said, looking at 
Editha’s lips in nature and then at her 
lips in art, and giving an empirical touch 
to them in the picture. “ But how dread¬ 
ful of her! How perfectly—excuse me—• 
how vulgar!'’’ 

A light broke upon Editha in the dark¬ 
ness which she felt had been without a 
gleam of brightness for weeks and 
months. The mystery that had bewilder¬ 
ed her was solved by the word; and from 
that moment she rose from grovelling in 
shame and self-pity, and began to live 
again in the ideal. 


The Stoat Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 


BY OCTAVE THANET 



HERE was a skeleton in Mrs. 


Margaret Ellis’s closet; the same 


skeleton abode also in the closet 
of Miss Lorania Hopkins. 

The skeleton—which really does not 
seem a proper word—was the dread of 
growing stout. They were more afraid 
of flesh than of sin. Yet they were 
both good women. Mrs. Ellis regularly 
attended church, and could always be 
depended on to show hospitality to con¬ 
vention delegates, whether clerical or 
lay; she was a liberal subscriber to every 
good work; she was almost the only 
woman in the church aid society that 
never lost her temper at the soul-vexing 
time of the church fair; and she had a 
larger clientele of regular j^ensioners 
than any one in town, unless it were her 
friend Miss Hopkins, who was “ so good 
to the poor ” that never a tramp slighted 
her kitchen. Miss Hopkins was as amia- 


160 Harper's Novelettes 

ble as Mrs. Ellis, and always put her 
name under that of Mrs. Ellis, with ex¬ 
actly the same amount, on the subscrip¬ 
tion papers. She could have given more, 
for she had the larger income; but she 
had no desire to outshine her friend, 
whom she admired as the most charming 
of women. 

Mrs. Ellis, indeed, was agreeable as 
well as good, and a pretty woman to 
the bargain, if she did not choose to be 
weighed before people. Miss Hopkins 
often told her that she was not really 
stout; she merely had a plump, trig 
little figure. Miss Hopkins, alas! was 
really stout. The two waged a warfare 
against the flesh equal to the apostle’s 
in vigor, although so much less deserving 
of praise. 

Mrs. Ellis drove her cook to distrac¬ 
tion with divers dieting systems, from 
Banting’s and Hr. Salisbury’s to the 
latest exhortations of some unknown 
newspaper prophet. She bought elab¬ 
orate gymnastic appliances, and swung 
dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses 
and propelled imaginary boats. She ran 
races with a professional trainer, and 
she studied the principles of Delsarte, 
and solemnly whirled on one foot and 
swayed her body and rolled her head and 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 161 

hopped and kicked and genuflected in 
company with eleven other stout and 
earnest matrons and one slim and gig¬ 
gling girl who almost choked at every 
lesson. In all these exercises Miss Hop¬ 
kins faithfully kept her company, which 
was the easier as Miss Hopkins lived in 
the next house, a conscientious Colonial 
mansion with all the modern conve¬ 
niences hidden beneath the old-fashioned 
pomp. 

And yet, despite these struggles and 
self-denials, it must be told that Mar¬ 
garet Ellis and Lorania Ilopkins were 
little thinner for their warfare. Still, 
as Shuey Cardigan, the trainer, told Mrs. 
Ellis, there was no knowing what they 
might have weighed had they not strug¬ 
gled. 

“ It ain’t only the fat that’s on ye, 
inoind ye,” says Shuey, with a confiden¬ 
tial sympathy of mien; “ it’s what ye’d 
naturally be getting in addition. And 
first ye’ve got to peel off that, and then 
yo come down to the other.” 

Shuey was so much the most success¬ 
ful of Mrs. Ellis’s reducers that his words 
were weighty. And when at last Shuey 
said, “ I got what you need,” Mrs. Ellis 
listened. “ You need a bike, no less,” 
says Shuey. 


162 Harpers Novelettes 

u But I never could ride one!” said 
Margaret, opening her pretty brown eyes 
and wrinkling her Grecian forehead. 

“ You’d ride in six lessons.” 

“ But how would I look, Cardigan ?” 

“ You’d look noble, ma’am !” 

“ What do you consider the best wheel, 
Cardigan?” 

The advertising rules of magazines pre¬ 
vent my giving Cardigan’s answer; it is 
enough that the wheel glittered at Mrs. 
Ellis’s door the very next day, and that 
a large pasteboard box was delivered by 
the expressman the very next week. He 
went on to Miss Hopkins’s, and delivered 
the twin of the box, with a similar yellow 
printed card bearing the impress of the 
same great firm on the inside of the box 
cover. 

For Margaret had hied her to Lorania 
Hopkins the instant Shuey was gone. 
She presented herself breathless, a lit¬ 
tle to the embarrassment of Lorania, 
who was sitting with her niece before a 
large box of cracker-jack. 

“ It’s a new kind of candy; I. was just 
lasting it, Maggie,” faltered she, while 
the niece, a girl of nineteen, with the 
inhuman spirits of her age, laughed 
aloud. 

“ You needn’t mind me,” said Mrs. 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 163 

Ellis, cheerfully; “ I’m eating potatoes 
now!” 

u Oh, Maggie!” Miss Hopkins breathed 
the words between envy and disapproval. 

Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, 
not a whit abashed. “ And I had beer 
for luncheon, and I’m going to have 
champagne for dinner.” 

“ Maggie, how do you dare ? Did they 
—did they taste good?” 

“ They tasted heavenly, Lorania. Pass 
me the candy. I am going to try some¬ 
thing new—the thinningest thing there 
is. I read in the paper of one woman 
who lost forty pounds in three months, 
and is losing still!” 

“ If it is obesity pills, I—” 

“ It isn’t; it’s a bicycle. Lorania, you 
and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins, you 
heartless child, what are you laughing 
at?” 

Lorania rose; in the glass over the 
mantel her figure returned her gaze. 
There was no mistake (except that, as is 
often the case with stout people, that 
glass always increased her size), she was 
a stout lady. She was taller than the 
average of women, and well proportioned, 
and still light on her feet; but she could 
not blink away the records; she was heavy 
on the scales. Did she stand looking at 


164 Harpers Novelettes 

herself squarely, her form was shapely 
enough, although larger than she could 
wish; but the full force of the revelation 
fell when she allowed herself a profile 
view, she having what is called “ a round 
waist,” and being almost as large one 
way as another. Yet Lorania was only 
thirty-three years old, and was of no 
mind to retire from society, and have a 
special phaeton built for her use, and 
hear from her mother’s friends how much 
her mother weighed before her death. 

“ How should 1 look on a wheel ?” she 
asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had asked be¬ 
fore; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, 
“ You’d look noble!” 

“ Shuey will teach us,” she went on, 
“and we can have a track made in your 
pasture, where nobody can see us learn¬ 
ing. Lorania, there’s nothing like it. 
Let me bring you the bicycle edition of 
Harper’s Bazar” 

Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and 
sat down to order her costume, while 
Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in vi¬ 
sions of a new bicycle which should pres¬ 
ently revert to her. “For it’s ridiculous, 
auntie’s thinking of riding!” Miss Sibyl 
considered. “ She would be a figure of 
fun on a wheel; besides, she can never 
learn in this world!” 



Miss Hopkins’s Bicycle 165 

Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, 
and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor, as 
Lorania had named her new house, into 
which she moved on the same day that 
she joined the Colonial Dames, by right 
of her ancestor the great and good divine 
commemorated by Mrs. Stowe. Lorania’s 
friends were all fond of her, she was so 
good-natured and tolerant, with a touch 
of dry humor in her vision of things, and 
not the least a Puritan in her frank en¬ 
joyment of ease and luxury. Neverthe¬ 
less, Lorania had a good, able-bodied, 
New England conscience, capable of stay¬ 
ing awake nights without flinching; and 
perhaps from her stanch old Puritan 
forefathers she inherited her simple in¬ 
tegrity so that she neither lied nor cheat¬ 
ed—even in the small, whitewashed man¬ 
ner of her sex—and valued loyalty above 
most of the virtues. She had an inno¬ 
cent pride in her godly and martial an¬ 
cestry, which was quite on the surface, 
and led people who did not know her to 
consider her haughty. 

For fifteen years she had been an or¬ 
phan, the mistress of a very large estate. 
No doubt she had been sought often in 
marriage, but never until lately had Lora¬ 
nia seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl 
said that she was too unsentimental to 


i66 


Harper's Novelettes 


marry. Really she was too romantic. 
She had a longing to be loved, not in the 
quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her suit¬ 
ors, but with the passion of the poets. 
Therefore the presence of another skele¬ 
ton in Mrs. Ellis’s closet, because she 
knew about a certain handsome Italian 
marquis who at this period was con¬ 
ducting an impassioned wooing by mail. 
Margaret did not fancy the marquis. He 
was not an American. He would take 
Lorania away. She thought his very 
virtue florid, and suspected that he had 
learned his love-making in a bad school. 
She dropped dark hints that frightened 
Lorania, who would sometimes piteously 
demand, “ Don’t you think he could care 
for me — for — for myself?” Margaret 
knew that slie had an overweening dis¬ 
trust of her own appearance. How many 
tears she had shed first and last over her 
unhappy plumpness it would be hard to 
reckon. She made no account of her satin 
skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lus¬ 
trous violet eyes with their long, black 
lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she 
glanced dismally at her shape and scorn¬ 
fully at her features, good, honest, irregu¬ 
lar American features, that might not sat¬ 
isfy a Greek critic, but suited each other 
and pleased her countrymen. And then 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 167 

she would sigh heavily over her figure. 
Her friend had not the heart to impute 
the marquis's beautiful, artless compli¬ 
ments to mercenary motives. After all, 
the Italian was a good fellow, according 
to the point of view of his own race, if he 
did intend to live on his wife’s money, 
and had a very varied assortment of 
memories of women. 

But Margaret dreaded and disliked him 
all the more for his good qualities. To¬ 
day this secret apprehension flung a 
cloud over the bicycle enthusiasm. She 
could not help wondering whether at 
this moment Lorania was not thinking 
of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a 
horse admirably. 

“ Aunt Lorania,” said Sibyl, “ there 
comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out and 
ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? 
The aphides are eating them all up.” 

“Yes, to be sure, dear; but don’t let 
Ferguson suspect what you are talking 
of; he might feel hurt.” 

Ferguson was the gardener. Miss Hop¬ 
kins left her note to go to the window. 
Below she saw a mettled horse, with toss¬ 
ing head and silken skin, restlessly fret¬ 
ting on his hit and pawing the dust in 
front of the fence, while his rider, hat in 
hand, talked with the young girl. He 


168 Harper's Novelettes 

was a little man, a very little man, in a 
gray business suit of the best cut and 
material. An air of careful and dainty 
neatness was diffused about both horse 
and rider. He bent towards Miss Sibyl’s 
charming person a thin, alert, fair face. 
His head was finely shaped, the brown 
hair worn away a little on the temples. 
He smiled gravely at intervals; the smile 
told that he had a dimple in his cheek. 

“ I wonder,” said Mrs. Ellis, “ whether 
Mr. Winslow can have a penchant for 
Sibyl?” 

Lorania opened her eyes. At this mo¬ 
ment Mr. Winslow had caught sight of 
her at the window, and he bowed almost 
to his saddle-bow; Sibyl was saying some¬ 
thing at which she laughed, and he vis¬ 
ibly reddened. It was a peculiarity of 
his that his color turned easily. In a 
second his hat was on his head and his 
horse bounded half across the road. 

“ Hardly, I think,” said Lorania. 
“ How well he rides! I never knew any 
one ride better—in this country.” 

“ I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such 
a thing,” said Mrs. Ellis, continuing her 
own train of thought, and yet vaguely 
disturbed by the last sentence. 

“ Why should she ?” 

“ Well, he is so little, for one thing. 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 169 

and she is so tall. And then Sibyl thinks 
a great deal of social position.” 

“ He is a Winslow,” said Lorania, arch¬ 
in her neck unconsciously—“ a lineal de¬ 
scendant from Kenelm Winslow, who 
came over in the May —” 

“ But his mother—” 

“ I don’t know anything about his 
mother before she came here. Oh, of 
course I know the gossip that she was a 
niece of the overseer at a. village poor- 
house, and that her husband quarrelled 
with all his family and married her in 
the poor-house, and I know that when he 
died here she would not take a cent from 
the Winslows, nor let them have the hoy. 
She is the meekest-looking little woman, 
but she must have an iron streak in her 
somewhere, for she was left without 
enough money to pay the funeral ex¬ 
penses, and she educated the boy and ac¬ 
cumulated money enough to pay for this 
place they have. 

“ She used to run a laundry, and made 
money; but when Cyril got a place in the 
hank she sold out the laundry and went 
into chickens and vegetables; she told 
somebody that it wasn’t so profitable as 
ihe laundry, but it was more genteel, and 
Cyril being now in a position of trust at 
the bank, she must consider him. Cyril 


Harper’s Novelettes 


170 

swept out the bank. People laughed 
about it, but, do you know, I rather liked 
Mrs. Winslow for it. She isn’t in the 
least an assertive woman. IIow long 
have we been up here, Maggie? Isn’t it 
four years ? And they have been our next- 
door neighbors, and she has never been 
inside the house. Nor he either, for that 
matter, except once when it took fire, you 
know, and he came in with that funny 
little chemical engine tucked under his 
arm, and took oft his hat in the same 
prim, polite way that he takes it off when 
he talks to Sibyl, and said, ‘ If you’ll ex¬ 
cuse me offering advice. Miss Hopkins, it 
is not necessary to move anything; it 
mars furniture very much to move it at 
a fire. I think, if you will allow me, I 
can extinguish this.’ And he did, too, 
didn’t he, as neatly and as coolly as if it 
were only adding up a column of figures. 
And offered me the engine as a souvenir.” 

“ Lorania, you never told me that!” 

“ It seemed like making fun of him, 
when he had been so kind. I declined 
as civilly as I could. I hope I didn’t 
hurt his feelings. I meant to pay a visit 
to his mother and ask them to dinner, 
but you know I went to England that 
week, and somehow when I came back 
it was difficult. It seems a little odd we 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 171 

never have seen more of the Winslows, 
but I fancy they don’t want either to in¬ 
trude or to be intruded on. But he is 
certainly very obliging about the garden. 
Think of all the slips and flowers he has 
given us, and the advice—” 

“ All passed over the fence. It is fun¬ 
ny our neighborly good offices which we 
render at arm’s-length. How long have 
you known him?” 

“ Oh, a long time. lie is cashier of 
my bank, you know. First he was teller, 
then assistant cashier, and now for five 
years he has been cashier. The presi¬ 
dent wants to resign and let him be pres¬ 
ident, but he hardly has enough stock 
for that. But Oliver says ” (Oliver was 
Miss Hopkins’s brother) “ that there isn’t 
a shrewder or straighter banker in the 
state. Oliver knows him. He says he is 
a sandy little fellow.” 

“ Well, he is,” assented Mrs. Ellis. “ It 
isn’t many cashiers would let robbers 
stab them and shoot them and leave them 
for dead rather than give up the combi¬ 
nation of the safe!” 

“ He wouldn’t take a cent for it, either, 
and he saved ever so many thousand dol¬ 
lars. Yes, he is brave. I went to the 
same school with him once, and saw him 
fight a big boy twice his size—such a nas- 


172 Harper's Novelettes 

ty boy, who called me i Fatty,’ and made 
a kissing' noise with his lips just to scare 
me—and poor little Cyril Winslow got 
awfully beaten, and when I saw him on 
the ground, with his nose bleeding and 
that big brute pounding him, I ran to the 
water-bucket, and poured the whole buck¬ 
et on that big, bullying boy and stopped 
the fight, just as the teacher got on the 
scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. 
He was crying himself. ‘ I ain’t crying 
because he hurt me,’ he sobbed; 4 I’m cry¬ 
ing because I’m so mad I didn’t lick him F 
i wonder if he remembers that episode?” 

44 Perhaps,” said Mrs. Ellis. 

44 Maggie, what makes you think he is 
falling in love with Sibyl?” 

Mrs. Ellis laughed. “I dare say he 
isn’t in love with Sibyl,” said she. 44 I 
think the main reason was his always 
riding by here instead of taking the 
shorter road down the other street.” 

44 Does he always ride by here? I 
hadn’t noticed.” 

44 Always!” said Mrs. Ellis. 44 I have 
noticed.” 

44 I am sorry for him,” said Lorania, 
musingly. 44 I think Sibyl is very much 
taken with that young Captain Carr at 
the Arsenal. Young girls always affect 
the army. He is a nice fellow, but I 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 


173 


don’t think he is the man Winslow is. 
Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. 
I don’t want to look like the escaped fat 
lady of a museum.” 

Lorania thought no more of Sibyl’s 
love-affairs. If she thought of the Wins¬ 
lows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow 
would sell or rent her pasture, which, in 
addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis’s past¬ 
ures thrown into one, would make such 
a delightful bicycle-track. 

The Winslow house was very different 
from the two villas that were the pride of 
Eairport. A little story-and-a-half cot¬ 
tage peeped out on the road behind the 
tall maples that were planted when Wins¬ 
low was a boy. But there was a wonder¬ 
ful green velvet lawn, and the tulips 
and sweet-peas and pansies that blazed 
softly nearer the house were as beautiful 
as those over which Miss Lorania’s gar¬ 
dener toiled and worried. 

Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who 
showed the fierce struggle of her early 
life only in the deeper lines between her 
delicate eyebrows and the expression of 
melancholy patience in her brown eyes. 

She always wore a widow’s cap and a 
black gown. In the mornings she donned 
a blue figured apron of stout and service¬ 
able stuff; in the afternoon an apron of 


Harper’s Novelettes 


174 

that sheer white lawn used by bishops 
and smart young waitresses. Of an after¬ 
noon, in warm weather, she was accus¬ 
tomed to sit on the eastern piazza, next to 
the Hopkins place, and rock as she sewed. 
She was thus sitting and sewing when 
she beheld an extraordinary procession 
cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched 
the tall trainer, Shuey Cardigan, who 
worked by day in the Lossing furniture- 
factory, and gave bicycle lessons at the 
armory evenings. He was clad in a white 
sweater and buff leggings, and was wheel¬ 
ing a lady’s bicycle. Behind him walked 
Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of 
which only came to her ankles—she al¬ 
ways so dignified in her toilets. 

“ Land’s sakes!” gasped Mrs. Winslow, 

if she ain’t going to ride a bike! Well, 
what next?” 

What really happened next was the 
sneaking (for no other word does justice 
to the cautious and circuitous movements 
of her) of Mrs. Winslow to the stable, 
which had one window facing the Hop¬ 
kins pasture. No cows were grazing in 
the pasture. All around the grassy pla¬ 
teau twinkled a broad brownish-yellow 
track. At one side of this track a bench 
had been placed, and a table, pleasing to 
the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs. 


175 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 

Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified 
brevity and ease as Miss Hopkins’s, sat 
on the bench supporting her own wheel. 
Shuey Cardigan was drawn up to his full 
six feet of strength, and, one arm in the 
air, was explaining the theory of the bal¬ 
ance of power. It was an uncanny mo¬ 
ment to Lorania. She eyed the glisten¬ 
ing, restless thing that slipped beneath 
her hand, and her fingers trembled. If 
she could have fled in secret she would. 
But since flight was not possible, she as¬ 
sumed a firm expression. Mrs. Ellis wore 
a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness. 

“Don’t you think it very high?” said 
Lorania. “ I can never get up on it!” 

“ It will be by the block at first,” said 
Shuey, in the soothing tones of a jockey to 
a nervous horse; “it’s easy by the block. 
And I’ll be steadying it, of course.” 

“ Don’t they have any with larger sad¬ 
dles? It is a very small saddle.” 

“ They’re all of a size. It wouldn’t 
look sporty larger; it would look like a 
special make. Yous wouldn’t want a 
special make.” 

Lorania thought that she would be 
thankful for a special make, but she sup¬ 
pressed the unsportsmanlike thought. 
“ The pedals are very small too, Cardi¬ 
gan. Arc you sure they can hold me?” 


i 76 Harper's Novelettes 

“ They would hold two of yc, Miss Hop¬ 
kins. Now sit aisy and graceful as ye 
would on jrour chair at home, hold the 
shoulders back, and toe in a bit on the 
pedals—ye won’t be skinning your ankles 
so much then—and hold your foot up 
ready to get the other pedal. Hold light 
on the steering - bar. Push off hard. 

Nowr 

“ Will you hold me ? I am going— 
Oh, it’s like riding an earthquake!” 

Here Shuey made a run, letting the 
wheel have its own wild way—to reach 
the balance. “ Keep the front wheel 
under you!” he cried, cheerfully. “ Niv- 
er mind where you go. Keep a-pedalling; 
whatever you do, keep a-pedalling!” 

“But I haven’t got but one pedal!” 
gasped the rider. 

“Ye lost it?” 

“No; I never had but one! Oh, don’t 
let me fall!” 

“ Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, 
then, I’ll hold it steady, and you get both 
feet right. Here we go!” 

Swaying frightfully from side to side, 
and wrenched from capsizing the wheel 
by the full exercise of Shuey’s great mus¬ 
cles, Miss Hopkins reeled over the track. 
At short intervals she lost her pedals, and 
her feet, for some strange reason, instead 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 177 

of seeking the lost, simply curled up as 
if afraid of being hit. She gripped the 
steering-handles with an iron grasp, and 
her turns were such as an engine makes. 
Nevertheless, Shuey got her up the track 
for some hundred feet, and then by a her¬ 
culean sweep turned her round and rolled 
her back to the block. It was at this pain¬ 
ful moment, when her whole being was 
concentrated on the effort to keep from 
toppling against Shuey, and even more 
to keep from toppling away from him, 
that Lorania’s strained gaze suddenly fell 
on the frightened and sympathetic face of 
Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no 
fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful 
risk to life and limb. Their eyes met. 
Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins’s 
features; but she looked up as soon as she 
was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a 
moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide 
whether to run or to stand her ground, 
she saw the cyclist approaching—on foot. 

“ Won’t you come in and sit down?” 
she said, smiling. “ We are trying our 
new wheels.” 

And because she did not know how to 
refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered herself to 
be handed over the fence. She sat on 
the bench beside Miss Hopkins in the 
prim attitude which had pertained to 


178 Harper's Novelettes 

gentility in her youth, her hands loosely 
clasping each other, her feet crossed at 
the ankles. 

“ It’s an awful sight, ain’t it?” she 
breathed, “ those little shiny things; I 
don’t see how you ever git on them.” 

“ I don’t get on them,” said Miss Hop¬ 
kins. “ The only way I shall ever learn 
to start off is to start without the pedals. 
Does your son ride, Mrs. Winslow?” 

“ No, ma’am,” said Mrs. Winslow; “ but 
he knows how. When lie was a boy noth¬ 
ing would do but he must have a bicycle, 
one of those things most as big as a 
mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke 
yourself somewhere, sure. I always ex¬ 
pected he’d be brought home in pieces. 
So I don’t think he’d have any manner of 
difficulty. Why, look at your friend; 
she’s ’most riding alone!” 

“ She could always do everything bet¬ 
ter than I,” cried Lorania, with ungrudg¬ 
ing admiration. u See how she jumps off! 
Now I can’t jump off any more than I 
can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to 
be told to press hard on the pedal on the 
side where you want to jump, and swing 
your further leg over first, and cut a kind 
of a figure eight with your legs, and turn 
your wheel the way you don’t want to go 
—all at once. While I’m trying to think 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 179 

of all those directions I always fall off. 
I got that wheel only yesterday, and fell 
before I even got away from the block. 
One of my arms looks like a Persian 
ribbon.” 

Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned 
sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins 
would use her liniment that she used for 
Cyril when he was hurt by the burglars 
at the bank; he was bruised “ terrible.” 

“ That must have been an awful time 
to you,” said Lorania, looking with more 
interest than she had ever felt on the 
meek little woman; and she noticed the 
tremble in the decorously clasped hands. 

“ Yes, ma’am,” was all she said. 

a I’ve often looked over at you on the 
piazza, and thought how cosey you looked. 
Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home 
evenings.” 

“ Yes, ma’am. We sit a great deal on 
the piazza. Cyril’s a good boy; he wa’n’t 
nine when his father died; and lie’s been 
like a man helping me. There never was 
a boy had such willing little feet. And 
he’d set right there on the steps and pat 
my slipper and say what he’d git me when 
he got to earning money; and lie’s got me 
every last thing, foolish and all, that he 
said. There’s that black satin gown, a 
sin and a shame for a plain body like me. 


180 Harper's Novelettes 

but he would git it. Cyril’s got a beauti¬ 
ful disposition too, jest like his pa’s, and 
lie’s a handy man about the house, and 
prompt at his meals. I wonder some¬ 
times if Cyril was to git married if his 
wife would mind his running over now 
and then and setting with me awhile.” 

She was speaking more rapidly, and her 
eyes strayed wistfully over to the Hop¬ 
kins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with 
the young soldier. Lorania looked at her 
pityingly. 

a Why, surely,” said she. 

u Mothers have kinder selfish feelings,” 
said Mrs. Winslow, moistening her lips 
and drawing a quick breath, still watch¬ 
ing the girl on the piazza. “ It’s so sweet 
and peaceful for them, they forget their 
sons may want something more. But it’s 
kinder hard giving all your little com¬ 
forts up at once when you’ve had him 
right with you so long, and could cook 
just what he liked, and go right into his 
room nights if he coughed. It’s all right, 
all right, but it’s kinder hard. And beau¬ 
tiful young ladies that have had every¬ 
thing all their lives might—might not 
understand that a homespun old mother 
isn’t wanting to force herself on them at 
all when they have company, and they 
have no call to fear it.” 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 181 

There was no doubt, however obscure 
the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow had 
a clear purpose in her mind, nor that 
she was tremendously in earnest. Little 
blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her 
breath came more quickly, and she swal¬ 
lowed between her words. Lorania could 
see the quiver in the muscles of her 
throat. She clasped her hands tight lest 
they should shake. “ lie’s in love with 
Sibyl,” thought Lorania. “ The poor 
woman!” She felt sorry for her, and she 
spoke gently and reassuringly: 

“ No girl with a good heart can help 
feeling tenderly towards her husband’s 
mother.” 

Mrs. Winslow nodded. “ You’re real 
comforting,” said she. She was silent a 
moment, and then said, in a different 
tone: “You ’ain’t got a large enough 
track. Wouldn’t you like to have our 
pasture too?” 

Lorania expressed her gratitude, and 
invited the Winslows to see the practice. 

“My niece will come out to-morrow,” 
she said, graciously. 

“Yes? She’s a real fine - appearing 
young lady,” said Mrs. Winslow. 

Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of 
them, however, was prepared to behold 
the track made and the fence down the 


182 


Harpers Novelettes 


very next morning 1 wlien they came out, 
about ten o’clock, to the west side of. Miss 
Hopkins’s boundaries. 

“As sure as you live, Maggie,” ex¬ 
claimed Lorania, eagerly, “lie’s got it all 
done! Now that is something like a lover. 
I only hope his heart won’t be bruised 
as black and blue as I am with the 
wheel!” 

“ Shuey says the only harm your falls 
do you is to take away your confidence,” 
said Mrs. Ellis. 

“ He wouldn’t say so if he could see my 
knees!” retorted Miss Hopkins. 

Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered 
away from the love-affairs of Mr. Cyril 
Winslow. She had not yet made up her 
mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who had been mar¬ 
ried, did not jump at conclusions regard¬ 
ing the heart of man so rapidly as her 
spinster friend. She preferred to talk of 
the bicycle. Nor did Miss Hopkins re¬ 
fuse the subject. To her at this moment 
the most important object on the globe 
was the shining machine which she would 
allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. 
Both Mrs. Ellis and she were simply pros¬ 
trated (as to their mental powers) by this 
new sport. They could not think nor 
talk nor read of anything but the wheel. 
This is a peculiarity of the bicyclist. No 


Miss Hopkinses Bicycle 183 


other sport appears to make such havoc 
with the mind. 

One can learn to swim without describ¬ 
ing his sensations to every casual ac¬ 
quaintance or hunting up the natatorial 
columns in the newspapers. One may 
enjoy riding a horse and yet go about 
his ordinary business with an equal mind. 
One learns to play golf and still remains 
a peaceful citizen who can discuss politics 
with interest. But the cyclist, man or 
woman, is soaked in every pore with the 
delight and the perils of wheeling. He 
talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. 
For this fatuous passion there is one ex¬ 
cuse. Other sports have the fearful de¬ 
light of danger and the pleasure of the 
consciousness of dexterity and the dogged 
Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; 
but no other sport restores to middle age 
the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication 
of childhood. Only on the wheel can an 
elderly woman feel as she felt when she 
ran and leaped and frolicked amid the 
flowers as a child. 

Lorania, of course, no longer jumped 
or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte exer¬ 
cises, but it was a measured, calculated, 
one may say cold-blooded kick, which lim¬ 
bered her muscles but did not restore her 
youthful glow of soul. Her legs and not 


184 


Harper's Novelettes 


her spirits pranced. The same thing may 
be said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between 
their accidents, they obtained glimpses of 
an exquisite exhilaration. And there was 
also to be counted the approval of their 
consciences, for they felt that no Turkish 
bath could wring out moisture from their 
systems like half an hour’s pumping at 
the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the 
month had ridden through one bottle of 
liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by 
the end of the second bottle could ride a 
short distance alone. But Lorania could 
not yet dismount unassisted, and several 
times she had felled poor Winslow to the 
earth when he rashly adventured to stop 
her. Captain Carr had a peculiar, grace¬ 
ful fling of the arm, catching the saddle- 
bar with one hand while he steadied the 
handles with the other. He did not hesi¬ 
tate in the least to grab Lorania’s belt if 
necessary. But poor modest Winslow, 
who fell upon the wheel and dared not 
touch the hem of a lady’s bicycle skirt, 
was as one in the path of a cyclone, and 
appeared daily in a fresh pair of white 
trousers. 

“ Yous have now,” Shuey remarked, 
impressively, one day—“yous have now 
arrived at the most difficult and danger¬ 
ous period in learning the wheel. It’s 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 185 

similar to a baby when it’s first learned 
to walk but ’ain’t yet got sense in walking. 
When it was little it would sta> put wher¬ 
ever ye put it, and it didn’t know enough 
to go by itself, which is similar to you. 
When I was holding ye you couldn’t fall, 
but now you’re off alone depindent on 
yourself, object-struck by every tree, tak¬ 
ing most of the pasture to turn in, and 
not able to git off save by falling—” 

“ Oh, couldn’t you go with her some¬ 
how?” exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled 
at the picture. “ Wouldn’t a rope round 
her be some help ? I used to put it round 
Cyril when ho was learning to walk.” 

“ Well, no, ma’am,” said Sliuey, pa¬ 
tiently. “Don’t you be scared; the rid¬ 
ing will come; she’s getting on grandly. 
And ye should see Mr. Winslow. ’Tis a 
pleasure to teach him. He rode in one 
lesson. I ain’t learning him nothing but 
tricks now.” 

“ But, Mr. Winslow, why don’t you 
ride here—with us?” said Sibyl, with her 
coquettish and flattering smile. “We’re 
always hearing of your beautiful riding. 
Are we never to see it ?” 

“ I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for 
that swell English cycle suit that I hear 
about,” said the captain, grinning; and 
Winslow grew red to his eyelids. 


Harper’s Novelettes 


186 

Lorania save an indignant side glance 
at Sibyl. Why need the girl make game 
of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl 
was biting her lips and darting side 
glances at the captain. She called the 
pasture practice slow, but she seemed, 
nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on 
the bench, the captain on one side and 
Winslow on the other, rattling off her 
girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. 
Ellis, with the anxious, set faces of the 
beginner, were pedalling frantically after 
Cardigan. Lorania began to pity Wins¬ 
low, for it was growing plain to her that 
Sibyl and the captain understood each 
other. She thought that even if Sibyl did 
care for the soldier, she need not be so 
careless of Winslow’s feelings. She talk¬ 
ed with the cashier herself, trying to 
make amends for Sibyl’s absorption in the 
other man, and she admired the fortitude 
that concealed the pain that he must feel. 
It became quite the expected thing for the 
Winslows to be present at the practice; 
but Winslow had not yet appeared on his 
wheel. He used to bring a box of candy 
with him, or rather three boxes—one for 
each lady, he said—and a box of pepper¬ 
mints for his mother. He was always 
very attentive to his mother. 

u And fancy, Aunt Margaret,” laughed 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 187 


Sibyl, “ he lias asked both auntie and me 
to the theatre. He is not going to com¬ 
promise himself by singling one of us 
out. lie’s a careful soul. By the way, 
Aunt Margaret, Mrs. Winslow was telling 
me yesterday that I am the image of 
auntie at my age. Am T ? Do I look 
like her? Was she as slender as I?” 

“ Almost,” said Mrs. Ellis, who was not 
so inflexibly truthful as her friend. 

u No, Sibyl,” said Lorania, with a deep, 
deep sigh, “I was always plump; I was 
a chubby child! And oh, what do you 
think I heard in the crowd at Manly’s 
once? One woman said to another, ‘ Miss 
ITopkins has got a wheel.’ ‘Miss Sibyl?’ 
said the other. 1 No; the stout Miss Hop¬ 
kins,’ said the first creature; and the sec¬ 
ond—” Lorania groaned. 

“ What did she say to make you feel 
that way?” 

“She said—she said, L Oh my!’” an¬ 
swered Lorania, with a dying look. 

“ Well, she was horrid,” said Mrs. Ellis; 
“but you know you have grown thin. 
Come on; let’s ride!” 

“ I never shall be able to ride,” said 
Lorania, gloomily. “ T can get on, but I 
can’t get off. And they’ve taken off the 
brake, so I can’t stop. And I’m object- 
struck by everything I look at. Some 


i88 


Harper's Novelettes 


clay I shall look down-hill. Well, my 
will’s in the lower drawer of the mahog¬ 
any desk.” 

Perhaps Lorania had an occult ink¬ 
ling of the future. For this is what hap¬ 
pened: That evening Winslow rode on 
to the track in his new English bicycle 
suit, which had just come. He hoped that 
he didn’t look like a fool in those queer 
clothes. But the instant he entered the 
pasture he saw something that drove ev¬ 
erything else out of his head, and made 
him bend over the steering-bar and race 
madly across the green; Miss Hopkins’s 
bicycle was running away down-hill! 
Cardigan, on foot, was pelting obliquely, 
in the hopeless thought to intercept her, 
while Mrs. Ellis, who was reeling over 
the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled 
as rapidly as she could to the brow of 
the hill, where she tumbled off, and aban¬ 
doning the wheel, rushed on foot to her 
friend’s rescue. 

She was only in time to see a flash of 
silver and ebony and a streak of brown 
dart before her vision and swim down 
the hill like a bird. Lorania was still in 
the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of 
habit, and clinging to the handle bars. 
Below the hill was a stone wall, and far¬ 
ther was a creek. There was a narrow 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 189 


opening in the wall where the cattle went 
clown to drink; if she could steer through 
that she would have nothing worse than 
soft water and mud; but there was not 
one chance in a thousand that she could 
pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow, 
horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who 
evidently was cutting across to catch the 
bicycle. 

“He’s riding out of sight!” thought 
Shuey, in the rear. He himself did not 
slacken his speed, although he could not 
be in time for the catastrophe. Suddenly 
he stiffened; Winslow was close to the 
runaway wheel. 

“ Grab her!” yelled Shuey. “ Grab her 
by the belt! Oh, Lord!” 

The exclamation exploded like the 
groan of a shell. For while Winslow’s 
bicycling was all that could be wished, 
and he flung himself in the path of the 
on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity 
and precision, he had not the power to 
withstand the never yet revealed number 
of pounds carried by Miss Lorania, im¬ 
pelled by the rapid descent and gather¬ 
ing momentum at every whirl. They 
met; he caught her; but instantly he was 
rolling down the steep incline and she 
was doubled up on the grass. He crashed 
siekeningly against the stone wall; she 


190 Harper's Novelettes 

lay stunned and still on the sod; and 
their friends, with beating hearts, slid 
down to them. Mrs. Winslow was on 
the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey 
to this day for the shout he sent up, 
“ Nobody killed, and I guess no bones 
broken.” 

When Margaret went home that eve¬ 
ning, having seen her friend safely in 
bed, not much the worse for her fall, she 
was told that Cardigan wished to see her. 
Shuey produced something from his 
pocket, saying: “ I picked this up on the 
hill, ma’am, after the accident. It maybe 
belongs to him, or it maybe belongs to 
her; I’m thinking the safest way is to 
just give it to you.” He handed Mrs. 
Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of 
Lorania in a red leather case. 

The morning was a spariding June 
morning, dewy and fragrant, and the 
sunlight burnished handle and pedal of 
the friends’ bicycles standing on the pi¬ 
azza unheeded. It was the hour for morn¬ 
ing practice, but Miss Hopkins slept in 
her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the 
little parlor adjoining, and thought. 

She did not look surprised at the maid’s 
announcement that Mrs. Winslow begged 
to see her for a few moments. Mrs. 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 191 

Winslow was pale. She was a good 
sketch of discomfort on the very edge of 
her chair, clad in the black silk which she 
wore Sundays, her head crowned with 
her bonnet of state, and her hands stiff 
in a pair of new gloves. 

“ I hope you’ll excuse me not sending 
up a card,” she began. “ Cyril got me 
some going on a year ago, and I thought 
I could lay my hand right on ’em, but 
I’m so nervous this morning I hunted all 
over, and they wasn’t anywhere. I won’t 
keep you. I just wanted to ask if you 
picked up anything—a little red llussia- 
leather case—” 

“ Was it a miniature—a miniature of 
my friend Miss Hopkins?” 

u I thought it all over, and I came to 
explain. You no doubt think it strange; 
and I can assure you that my son never 
let any human being look at that picture. 
I never knew about it myself till it was 
lost and he got out of his bed — he 
ain’t hardly able to walk—and staggered 
over here to look for it, and I followed 
him; and so I10 had to tell me. ITe had 
it painted from a picture that came out 
in the papers. lie felt it was an awful 
liberty. But—you don’t know how my 
boy feels, Mrs. Ellis; he has worshipped 
that woman for years. lie ’ain’t never 


192 


Harper's Novelettes 


had a thought of anybody but hor since 
they was children in school; and yet he’s 
been so modest and so shy of pushing 
himself forward that he didn’t do a thing 
until I put him on to help you with this 
bicycle.” 

Margaret Ellis did not know what to 
say. She thought of the marquis; and 
Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: “ He 
’ain’t never said a word to me till this 
morning. But don’t I know? Don’t I 
know who looked out so careful for her 
investments? Don’t I know who was al¬ 
ways looking out for her interest, silent, 
and always keeping himself in the back¬ 
ground? Why, she couldn’t even buy a 
cow that he wa’n’t looking round to see 
that she got a good one! ’Twas him saw 
the gardener, and kept him from buying 
that cow with tuberculosis, ’cause he knew 
about the herd. He knew by finding out. 
lie worshipped the very cows she owned, 
you may say, and I’ve seen him patting 
and feeding up her dogs; it’s to our house 
that big mastiff always goes every night. 
Mrs. Ellis, it ain’t often that a woman 
gits love such as my son is offering, only 
he da’sn’t offer it, and it ain’t often a. wom¬ 
an is loved by such a good man as my 
son. He ’ain’t got any bad habits; he’ll 
die before he wrongs anybody; and he has 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 


193 


got the sweetest temper you ever see; and 
he’s the tidiest man about the house you 
could ask, and the promptest about meals.” 

Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, 
and sent another flood of color into it, for 
she said, “Mrs. Winslow, I don’t know 
how much good I may be able to do, but 
I am on your side.” 

Her eyes followed the little black fig¬ 
ure when it crossed the lawn. She won¬ 
dered whether her advice was good, for 
she had counselled that Winslow come 
over in the evening. 

“ Maggie,” said a voice. Lorania was 
in the doorway. “ Maggie,” she said, 
“ I o tight to tell you that I heard every 
word.” 

“ Then I can tell you ” cried Mrs. El¬ 
lis, “ that he is fifty times more of a 
man than the marquis, and loves you 
fifty thousand times better!” 

Lorania made no answer, not even by 
a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis could 
not guess. Nor was she any wiser when 
Winslow appeared at her gate, just as the 
sun was setting. 

“ I didn’t think I would better intrude 
on Miss Hopkins,” said he, “ but perhaps 
you could tell me how she is this eve¬ 
ning. My mother told me how kind you 
were, and perhaps you—you would ad- 
13 


194 


Harper's Novelettes 


vise me if I might venture to send Miss 
Hopkins some flowers.” 

Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. 
Ellis averted her eyes from his face; 
thus she was able to perceive Lorania 
saunter out of the Hopkins gate. So 
changed was she by the bicycle practice 
that, wrapped in her niece’s shawl, she 
made Margaret think of the girl. An 
inspiration flashed to her; she knew the 
cashier’s dependence on his eye-glasses, 
and he was not wearing them. 

“ If you want to know how Miss Hop¬ 
kins is, why not speak to her niece now?” 
said she. 

He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he 
supposed, and he went swiftly down the 
street. “Miss Sibyl!” he began, “may I 
ask how is your aunt?”—and then she 
turned. 

She blushed, then she laughed aloud. 
“ Has the bicycle done so much for me ?” 
said she. 

“ The bicycle didn’t need to do any¬ 
thing for you!” he cried, warmly. 

Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, 
heard, turned, and walked thoughtfully 
away. “ They’re off,” said she—she had 
acquired a sporting tinge of thought from 
Shuey Cardigan. “ If with that start he 
can’t make the running, it’s a wonder.” 


Miss Hopkins's Bicycle 


*95 


u I have invited Mr. Winslow and his 
mother to dinner,” said Miss Hopkins, in 
the morning. “ Will you come too, Mag¬ 
gie ?” 

“ I’ll back him against the marquis,” 
thought Margaret, gleefully. 

A week later Lorania said: “ I really 
think I must be getting thinner. Fancy 
Mr, Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mis¬ 
taking me for Sibyl! lie says—I told 
him how I had suffered from my figure— 
he says it can’t be what he has suffered 
from his. Do you think him so very 
short, Maggie? Of course he isn’t tall, 
but he has an elegant figure, I think, and 
I never saw anywhere such a rider!” 

Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, “ He 
isn’t very small, and he is a beautiful 
figure on the wheel!” And added to 
herself, “ I know what was in that let¬ 
ter she sent yesterday to the marquis! 
But to think of its all being due to the 
bicycle!” 


The Marrying of Esther 

BY MARY M. MEARS 

ET there and cry; it’s so sensible; 



and I ’ain’t said that a June wed- 


din’ wouldn’t be a little nicer. But 
what you goin’ to live on? Joe can’t git 
his money that soon.” 

“ He—said he thought he could man¬ 
age. But I won’t be married at all if I 
can’t have it—right.” 

“ Well, you can have it right. All is, 
there are some folks in this town that if 
they don’t calculate doin’ real well by 
you, I don’t feel called upon to invite.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” sobbed 
the girl. She sat by the kitchen table, 
her face hidden in her arms. Her mother 
stood looking at her tenderly, and yet 
with a certain anger. 

“ I mean about the presents. You’ve 
worked in the church, you’ve sung in the 
choir for years, and now it’s a chance for 
folks to show that they appreciate it, and 
without they’re goin’ to— Boxes of cake 



The Marrying of Esther 197 

would be plenty if they wa’n’t goin’ to 
serve you any better than they did Ella 
Plummer.” 

Esther Robinson lifted her bead. She 
was quite large, in a soft young way, and 
her skin w T as as pure as a baby’s. “ But 
you can’t know beforehand how they’re 
going to treat me!” 

“ Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and 
if you’re set on next month, it’s none too 
soon to be seein’ about it. I’ve a good 
mind to step over to Mis’ Lawrence’s and 
Mis’ Stetson’s this afternoon.” 

“ Mother! You—wouldn’t ask ’em any¬ 
thing?” 

Mrs. Robinson hung away her dish- 
towel ; then she faced Esther. “ Of course 
I wouldn’t ash ’em; there’s other ways of 
tindin’ out besides ashing. I’d bring the 
subject round by saying I hoped there 
wouldn’t bo many duplicates, and I’d 
git out of ’em what they intended givin’ 
without seemin’ to.” Esther looked at 
her mother with a sort of fascination. 
“ Then we could give some idea about 
the refreshments; for I ain’t a-goin’ to 
have no elaborate layout without I do 
know; and it ain’t because I grudge the 
money, either,” she added, in swift self- 
defence. 

Mrs. Robinson was a good manager of 


198 


Harper's Novelettes 


the moderate means her husband had left 
her, but she was not parsimonious or in¬ 
hospitable. Now she was actuated by a 
tierce maternal jealousy. Esther, despite 
her pleasant ways and her helpfulness, 
was often overlooked in a social way. 
This was due to her mother. The more 
pretentious laughed about Mrs. Robinson, 
and though the thrifty, contented house¬ 
wife never missed the amenities which 
might have been extended to her, she was 
keenly alive to any slights put upon her 
daughter. And so it was now. 

Mrs. Lawrence, a rich, childless old 
lady, lived next door, and about four 
o’clock she went over there. The girl 
watched her departure doubtfully, but the 
possibility of not having a large wedding 
kept her from giving a full expression to 
her feelings. 

Esther had always dreamed of her 
wedding; she had looked forward to it 
just as definitely before she met Joe 
Elsworth as after her engagement to 
him. There would be flowers and guests 
and feasting, and she would be the centre 
of it all in a white dress and veil. 

She had never thought about there be¬ 
ing any presents. Now for the first time 
she thought of them as an added glory, 
but her imagination did not extend to the 


The Marrying of Esther 199 

separate articles or to their givers. Esther 
never pictured her uncle Jonas at the 
wedding, yet he would surely be in at¬ 
tendance in his rough farmer clothes, his 
grizzled, keen old face towering above the 
other guests. She did not picture her 
friends as she really knew them; the 
young men would be fine gentlemen, and 
the girls ladies in wonderful toilets. As 
for herself and Joe, hidden away in a 
bureau drawer Esther had a poster of one 
of Frohman’s plays. It represented a 
bride and groom standing together in a 
drift of orange blossoms. 

Mrs. Robinson did not return at supper¬ 
time, and Esther ate alone. At eight 
o’clock Joe Elsworth came. She met him 
at the door, and they kissed in the entry. 
Then Joe preceded her in, and hung up 
his cap on a projecting knob of the what¬ 
not—that was where he always put it. 
He glanced into the dining-room and took 
in the waiting table. 

“ Haven’t you had supper yet ?” 

“ Mother isn’t home.” 

He came towards her swiftly; his eyes 
shone with a sudden elated tenderness. 
She raised her arms and turned away her 
face, but he swept aside the ineffectual 
barrier. When he let her go she seated 
herself on the farther side of the room. 


200 


Harper's Novelettes 


Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He 
met it, then looked down smilingly and 
awkwardly at his shoes. 

“ Where did you say your ma had 
gone?” 

“ She’s gone to Mis’ Lawrence’s, and a 
few other places.” 

“ Oh, calling. Old Mis’ Norton goes 
about twice a year, and I ask her what it 
amounts to.” 

“ I guess you’ll find ma’s calls ’ll 
amount to something.” 

“ How’s that ?” he demanded. 

“ She’s—going to try and find out what 
they intend giving.” 

“ What they intend giving?” 

“Yes. And without they intend giv¬ 
ing something worth while, she says she 
won’t invite ’em, and maybe we won’t 
have a big wedding at all,” she finished, 
pathetically. 

Joe did not answer. Esther stole an 
appealing glance at him. 

“ Does it seem a queer thing to do ?” 

“ Well, yes, rather.” 

Her face quivered. “ She said I’d done 
so much for Mis’ Lawrence—” 

“Well, you have, and I’ve wished a 
good many times that you wouldn’t. I’m 
sure I never knuckled to her, though she 
is my great-aunt.” 


The Marrying of Esther 201 

“ I never knuckled to her, either,” pro¬ 
tested Esther. 

“ You’ve done a sight more for her 
than I would have done, fixin’ her dresses 
and things, and she with more money 
than anybody else in town. But your 
mother ain’t going to call on everybody, 
is she?” he asked, anxiously. 

“ Of course she ain’t. Only she said, 
if it was going to be in June—but I don’t 
want it to be ever,” she added, covering 
her face. 

“ Oh, it’s all right,” said Joe, penitent¬ 
ly. He went over and put his arm around 
her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a wor¬ 
ried look. 

Joe’s father had bound him out to a 
farmer by the name of Norton until his 
majority, when the sum of seven hundred 
dollars, all the little fortune the father 
had left, together with three hundred 
more from Norton, was to be turned over 
to him. But Joe would not be twenty- 
one until October. It was going to be 
difficult for him to arrange for the June 
wedding Esther desired. lie was very 
much in love, however, and presently he 
lifted his boyish cheek from her hair. 

“ I think I’ll take that cottage of Lan- 
ham’s; it’s the only vacant house in the 
village, and he’s promised to wait for the 


202 Harpers Novelettes 

rent, so that confounded old Norton need¬ 
n’t advance me a cent.” 

Esther flushed. “ What do you sup¬ 
pose makes him act so?” she questioned, 
though she knew. 

Joe blushed too. “ He don’t like it be¬ 
cause I’m going to work in the factory 
when it opens. But Mis’ Norton and 
Sarah have done everything for me,” he 
added, decidedly. 

ITp to the time of his engagement Joe 
had been in the habit of showing Sarah 
Norton an occasional brotherly attention, 
and he would have continued to do so 
had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson inter¬ 
fered—Esther from girlish jealousy, and 
her mother because she did not approve 
of the family, she said. She could not 
say she did not approve of Sarah, for 
there was not a more upright, self-respect¬ 
ing girl in the village. But Sarah, be¬ 
cause of her father’s miserliness, often 
went out for extra work when the neigh¬ 
bors needed help, and this was the real 
cause of Mrs. Robinson’s feeling. Un¬ 
consciously she made the same distinc¬ 
tion between Sarah Norton and Esther 
that some of the more ambitious of the 
village mothers made between their girls 
and her own daughter. Then it was com¬ 
mon talk that old Jim Norton, for obvi- 


The Marrying of Esther 203 

ous reasons, was displeased with Joe’s 
matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson 
professed to believe that the wife and 
daughter were really the ones disappoint¬ 
ed. Now Esther began twisting a button 
of Joe’s coat. 

“ I don’t believe mother ’ll ask either 
of ’em to the wedding,” said she. 

When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther 
stood expectant and fearful by the table. 
Tier mother drew up a chair and reached 
for the bread. 

“ I didn’t stop anywhere for supper. 
You’ve had yours, ’ain’t you?” 

The girl nodded. 

“Joe come?” 

“ lie just left.” 

But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hur¬ 
ried into divulging the result of her 
calls. She remained massively mysterious. 
Esther began to wish she had not hurried 
Joe off so unceremoniously. After her 
first cup of tea, however, her mother ask¬ 
ed for a slip of paper and a pencil. “ I 
want that pencil in my machine drawer, 
that writes black, and any kind of paper 
’ll do,” she said. 

Esther brought them; then she took up 
her sewing. She was not without a cer¬ 
tain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, be¬ 
tween her sips of tea, wrote. The soft 


204 Harper's Novelettes 

gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, 
and she had a tingling desire to snatch 
the paper. After a last misdirected plac¬ 
ing of her cup in her plate, however, 
her mother looked up and smiled trium¬ 
phantly. 

“ I guess we’ll have to plan something 
different than boxes of cake. Listen to 
this; Mis’ Lawrence— No, I won’t read 
that yet. Mis’ Manning—I went in there 
because I thought about her not inviting 
you when she gave that library party— 
one salt and pepper with rose-buds paint¬ 
ed on ’em.” 

Esther leaned forward; her face was 
crimson. 

“You needn’t look so,” remonstrated 
her mother. “It was all I could do to 
keep from laughing at the way she acted. 
I just mentioned that we were only goin’ 
to invite those you were indebted to, and 
she went and fetched out that salt and 
pepper. I believe she said they was in¬ 
tended in the first place for some relative 
that didn’t git married in the end.” 

The girl made an inarticulate noise in 
her throat. Her mother continued, in a 
loud, impressive tone: 

“Mis’ Stetson—something worked. She 
hasn’t quite decided what, but she’s goin’ 
to let me know about it. Jane Watson—” 


The Marrying of Esther 205 

“ You didn’t go there, mother!” 

Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to 
a contemptuous look. “ I guess I’ve got 
sense. Jane was at Mis’ Stetson’s, and 
when I came away she went along with 
me, and insisted that I should stop and 
see some lamp-lighters she’d got to copy 
from—those paper balls. She seemed 
afraid a string of those wouldn’t be 
enough, but I told her how pretty they 
was, and how much you’d be pleased.” 

“ I guess I’ll think a good deal more of 
’em than I will of Mis’ Manning’s salt and 
pepper.” Esther was very near tears. 

“ Next I went to the Rogerses, and 
they’ve about concluded to give you a 
lamp; and they can afford to. Then 
that's all the places I’ve been, except to 
Mis’ Lawrence’s, and she”—Mrs. Robin¬ 
son paused for emphasis—“ she’s goin’ to 
give you a silver tea-set!” 

Esther looked at her mother, her red 
lips apart. 

“ That was the first place I called, and 
I said pretty plain what I was gittin’ at; 
but after I knew about the water-set, that 
settled what kind of weddin’ we’d have.” 

But the next morning the world looked 
different. Her rheumatic foot ached, and 
that always affected her temper; but when 


2o 6 Harper's Novelettes 

they sat down to sew, the real cause of 
her irascibleness came out. 

“ Mis’ Lawrence wa’n’t any more civil 
than she need be,” she remarked. “ I 
guess she’d decided she’d got to do some¬ 
thing, being related to Joe. She said she 
supposed you were expecting a good many 
presents; and I said no, you didn’t look 
for many, and there were some that 
you’d done a good deal for that you 
knew better than to expect anything 
from. I was mad. Then she turned 
kind of red, and mentioned about the 
water-set.” 

And in the afternoon a young girl ac¬ 
quaintance added to Esther’s perturba¬ 
tion. u I just met Susan Rogers,” she 
confided to the other, “ and she said they 
hated to give that lamp, but they sup¬ 
posed they were in for it.” 

Esther was not herself for some days. 
All her pretty dreams were blotted out, 
and a morbid embarrassment took hold 
of her; but she was roused to something 
like her old interest when the presents 
began to come in and she saw her moth¬ 
er’s active preparations for the wed¬ 
ding—the more so as over the village 
seemed to have spread a pleasant excite¬ 
ment concerning the event. Presents ar¬ 
rived from unexpected sources, so that in- 


The Marrying of Esther 207 


vitations had to be sent afterwards to the 
givers. Women who had never crossed 
the Robinson threshold came now like 
Hindoo gift-bearers before some deity 
whom they wished to propitiate. Meet¬ 
ing there, they exchanged droll, half- 
deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson’s 
calls had formed the subject of much 
laughing comment; but weddings were 
not common in Marshfield, and the de¬ 
sire to be bidden to this one was univer¬ 
sal; it spread like an epidemic. 

Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She 
overlooked the matter of duplicates, and 
accepted graciously every article that was 
tendered—from a patch-work quilt to a 
hem-stitched handkerchief. “ You can’t 
have too many of some things,” she re¬ 
marked to Esther. But later she reversed 
this statement. Match-safes, photograph- 
frames, and pretty nothings accumulated 
to an alarming extent. 

“ Now that’s the last pin-cushion you’re 
goin’ to take,” she declared, as she re¬ 
turned from answering a call at the door 
one evening. “ There’s fourteen in the 
parlor now. Some folks seem to have 
gone crazy on pin-cushions.” 

She grew confused, and the next day 
she went into the parlor, which, owing to 
the nature of the display, resembled a 


208 


Harper's Novelettes 


booth at a church fair, and made an accu¬ 
rate list of the article^ received. When 
she emerged, her large, handsome face 
was quite flushed. 

“ Little wabbly, fall-down things, most 
of ’em. It ’ll take you a week to dust 
your house if you have all those things 
standin’ round.” 

u Well, I ain’t goin’ to put none of ’em 
away,” declared Esther. “ I like orna¬ 
ments.” 

“ Glad you do; you’ve got enough of 
’em, land knows. Ornaments /” The very 
word seemed to incense her. “ I guess 
you’ll find there’s something needed be¬ 
sides ornaments when you come right 
down to livin’. Eor one thing, you’re 
awful short of dishes and bedding, and 
you can’t ever have no company—unless,” 
she added, with withering sarcasm, “ you 
give ’em little vases to drink out of, and 
put ’em to bed under a picture-drape, 
with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a 
piller.” 

And from that time Mrs. Robinson ac¬ 
cepted no gift without first consulting 
her list. It became known that she 
looked upon useful articles with favor, 
and brooms and flat-irons and bright tin¬ 
ware arrived constantly. Then it was 
that the heterogeneous collection began 


The Marrying of Esther 209 

to pall upon Esther. The water-set had 
not yet been presented, but its magnifi¬ 
cence grew upon her, and she persuaded 
Joe to get a spindle-legged stand on which 
to place it, although he could not furnish 
the cottage until October, and had gone 
in debt for the few necessary things. She 
pictured the combination first in one cor¬ 
ner of the little parlor, then another, 
finally in a window where it could be seen 
from the road. 

Esther’s standards did not vary greatly 
from her mother’s, but she had a bewil¬ 
dered sense that they were somehow step¬ 
ping from the beaten track of custom. 
On one or two points, however, she was 
firm. The few novels that had come with¬ 
in her reach she had conned faithfully. 
Thus, even before she had a lover, she 
had decided that the most impressive 
hour for a wedding was sunrise, and had 
arranged the procession which was to 
wend its way towards the church. And 
in these matters her mother, respecting 
her superior judgment, stood stanchly by 
her. 

Nevertheless, when the eventful morn¬ 
ing arrived she was bitterly disappointed. 
She had set her heart on having the 
church bell rung, and overlooked the fact 
that the meeting-house bell was cracked, 
14 


210 Harpers Novelettes 

till Joe reminded her. Then the weather 
was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, 
not yet dispersed by the sun, hung over 
the barely awakened village, and the lit¬ 
tle flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl 
pinned about her, and when the proces¬ 
sion was fairly started she tripped over it, 
and there was a halt while she gathered 
up the roses and geraniums in her little 
trembling hands and thrust them back 
into the basket. Celia Smith tittered. 
Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accom¬ 
panied by Joe’s friend, red-headed Harry 
Baker; and Mrs. Bobinson and Uncle 
Jonas, who were far behind, made the 
most of the delay. Mrs. Bobinson often 
explained that she was not a “ good walk¬ 
er,” and her brother-in-law tried jocularly 
to help her along, although he used a 
cane himself. His weather-beaten old 
face was beaming, but it was as though 
the smiles were set between the wrinkles, 
for he kept his mouth sober. He had a 
flower in his button-hole, which gave him 
a festive air, despite the fact that his 
clothes were distinctly untidy. Several 
buttons were off: he had no wife to keep 
them sewed on. 

Esther had given but one glance at 
him. Her head under its lace veil bent 
lower and lower. The flounces of her 


The Marrying of Esther 211 


skirt stood out about her like the delicate 
bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way 
falteringly. Joe, his young eyes radiant, 
inclined his curly head towards her, but 
she did not heed him. The little proces¬ 
sion was as an awkward garment which 
hampered and abashed her; but just as 
they reached the church the sun crept 
above the tree-tops, and from the bleak¬ 
ness of dawn the whole scene warmed 
into the glorious beauty of a June day. 
The guests lost their aspect of chilled 
waiting; Esther caught their admiring 
glances. For one brief moment her tri¬ 
umph was complete; the next she had 
overstepped its bounds. She went for¬ 
ward scarcely touching Joe’s arm. Her 
great desire became a definite purpose. 
She whispered to a member of her Sun¬ 
day-school class, a little fellow. He looked 
at her wonderingly at first, then darted 
forward and grasped the rope which dan¬ 
gled down in a corner of the vestibule. 
Tie pulled with a will, but even as the old 
bell responded with a hoarse clank, his 
arms jerked upward, and with curls fly¬ 
ing and fat legs extended ho ascended 
straight to the ceiling. 

“ Oh, suz, the Lord’s taking him right 
up!” shrieked an old woman, the sepul¬ 
chral explanation of the broken bell but 


212 


Harpers Novelettes 


serving to intensify her terror; and there 
were others who refused to understand, 
even when his sister caught him by the 
heels. She was very white, and she shook 
him before she set him down. Too scared 
to realize where he was, he fought her, 
his little face quite red, and his blouse 
strained up so that it revealed the girth 
of his round little body in its knitted 
undershirt. 

“ Le’ me go,” he whimpered; “ she 
telled me to do it.” 

His words broke through the general 
amazement like a stone through the icy 
surface of a stream. The guests gave 
way to mirth. Some of the young girls 
averted their faces; they could not look 
at Esther. The matrons tilted their bon¬ 
neted heads towards one another and 
shook softly. “ I thought at first it might 
be a part of the show,” whispered one, 
“ but I guess it wasn’t planned.” 

Esther was conscious of every whisper 
and every glance; shame seemed to en¬ 
gulf her, but she entered the church hold¬ 
ing her head high. When they emerged 
into the sunshine again, she would have 
been glad to run away, but she was forced 
to pause while her mother made an an¬ 
nouncement. 

“ The refreshments will be ready by 


213 


The Marrying of Esther 

ten,” she said, “ and as we calculate to 
keep the tables runnin’ all day, those 
that can’t come one time can come an¬ 
other.” 

After which there was a little rice¬ 
throwing, and the young couple departed. 
The frolic partly revived Esther’s spirits; 
but her mother, toiling heavily along with 
a hard day’s work before her, was in¬ 
clined to speak her mind. Her brother- 
in-law, however, restrained her. 

“ Seems to me I never seen anything 
quite so cute as that little feller a-ringin’ 
that bell for the weddin’. Who put him 
up to it, anyhow ?” 

“ Why, Esther. She was so set on 
havin’ a ‘ chime,’ as she called it.” 

“ Well, it was a real good idee! A 
real good idee!” and he kept repeating 
the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy 
of appreciation. 

When Esther reached home, she and 
Joe arranged the tables in the side yard, 
but when the first guest turned in at the 
gate her mother sent her to the house. 
“ Now you go into the parlor and rest. 
You can just as well sit under that dove 
as stand under it,” she said. 

The girl started listlessly to obey, but 
the next words revived her like wine: 

“ I declare it’s Mis’ Lawrence, and she’s 


214 


Harper's Novelettes 


bringing that water-set; she hung on to 
it till the last minit.” 

Esther flew to her chamber and donned 
her veil, which she had laid aside, then 
sped down-stairs; hut when she passed 
through the parlor she put her hands 
over her eyes: she wanted to look at the 
water-set first with Joe. lie was no long¬ 
er helping her mother, and she fluttered 
about looking for him. The rooms would 
soon he crowded, and then there would 
be no opportunity to examine the won¬ 
derful gift. 

She darted down a foot-path that 
crossed the yard diagonally. It led to a 
gap in the stone-wall which opened on a 
lane. Esther and Joe had been in the 
habit of walking here of an evening. It 
was scarcely more than a grassy way over¬ 
hung by leaning branches of old fruit 
trees, but it was a short-cut to the cottage 
Joe had rented. Now Esther’s feet, of 
their own volition, carried her here. She 
slid through the opening. “Joel” she 
called, and her voice had the tremulous 
cadence of a bird summoning its mate; 
but it died away in a little smothered 
cry, for not a rod away was Joe, and sit¬ 
ting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. 
They had their backs towards her, and 
were engaged in such an earnest conver- 


The Marrying of Esther 215 

sation that they did not hear her. Sa¬ 
rah’s shoulders moved with her quick 
breathing; she had a hand on Joe’s arm. 
Esther stood staring, her thin draperies 
circling about her, and her childish face 
pale. Then she turned, with a swift im¬ 
pulse to escape, but again she paused, her 
eyes riveted in the opposite direction. 
From where she stood the back door of 
her future home was visible, and two men 
were carrying out furniture. Involun¬ 
tarily she opened her lips to call Joe, but 
no sound came. Yes, they had the bu¬ 
reau; they would probably take the spin¬ 
dle-legged stand next. A strong protec¬ 
tive instinct is part of possession, and to 
Esther that sight was as a magnet to 
steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, 
but so lightly that the couple by the wall 
were as unobservant of her as they were 
of the wind stirring the long grass. 

Sarah Norton rose. “ I run every step 
of the way to get here in time. Please, 
Joe!” she panted. 

lie shook his head. “ It’s real kind of 
you and your mother, Sarah, but I guess 
I ain’t going to touch any of the money 
you worked for and earned, and I can’t 
help but think, when I talk to Lanham—” 

“ I tell you, you can’t reason with him 
in his state!” 


216 Harpers Novelettes 

u Well, I’ll raise it somehow.” 

“ You’ll have to be quick about it, 
then,” she returned, concisely. “ He’ll 
be here in a few minutes, and it’s cash 
down for the first three months, or he’ll 
let the other party have it.” 

u But he promised—” 

“ That don’t make any difference. He’s 
drunk, and he thought father’d offer to 
make you an advance; but father just 
told him to come down here, that you 
w 7 ere being married, and say he’d poke 
all your things out in the road without 
you paid.” 

The young man turned. Sarah blocked 
his way. She was a tall, good-looking 
girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she 
looked straight up into his face. 

“ See here, Joe; you know what makes 
father act so, and so do I, and so does 
mother, and mother and I want you 
should take this money; it ’ll make us 
feel better.” Sarah flushed, hut she look¬ 
ed at him as directly as if she had been 
his sister. 

Joe felt an admiration for her that was 
almost reverence. It carried him for the 
moment beyond the consideration of his 
own predicament. 

“ No, I don’t know what makes him 
act so either,” he cried, hotly. “ Oh 






The Marrying of Esther 217 

Lord, Sarah, you sha’n’t say such a 
thing!” 

She interrupted him. “ Won’t you 
take it ?” 

He turned again: “ You’re just as good 
as you can be, but I can manage some 
way.” 

“ I’ll watch for Lanham,” she answer¬ 
ed, quietly, “ and keep him talking as 
long as I can. He’s just drunk enough 
to make a scene.” 

Half-way to the house, Joe met Harry 
Barker. 

“ What did she want ?” he inquired, 
curiously. 

When Joe told him he plunged into 
his pocket and drew out two dollars, then 
offered to go among the young fellows 
and collect the balance of the amount, 
but Joe caught hold of him. 

“ Think of something else.” 

“ I could explain to the boys—” 

“ You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she 
won’t step out on the porch,” the other 
commanded; “ she’s my great-aunt, and 
I never asked anything of her before.” 

But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathet¬ 
ic. She told Joe flatly that she never 
lent money, and that the water-set was as 
much as she could afford to give. “ It 
ain’t paid for, though,” she added; “and 


2l8 


Harper's Novelettes 


if you’d rather have the money, I suppose 
I can send it back. But seems to me I 
shouldn’t have been in such an awful 
hurry to git married; I should ’a’ waited 
a month or so, till I had something to git 
married on. But you’re just like your 
father — never had no calculation. Do 
you want I should return that silver?” 

Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out 
of the difficulty. Then a vision of Esther 
rose before him, and the innocent prep¬ 
arations she had been making for the dis¬ 
play of the gift. “ No,” he answered, 
shortly. And Mrs. Lawrence, with a 
shake of the shoulders as though she 
threw oft’ all responsibility in her young 
relative’s affairs, bustled away. “ I’m 
going to keep that water-set if everything 
else has to go,” he declared to the aston¬ 
ished Harry. “ Let ’em set me out in the 
road; I guess I’ll git along.” He had a 
humorous vision of himself and Esther 
trudging forth, with the water-set be¬ 
tween them, to seek their fortune. 

He flung himself from the porch, and 
was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The 
old fellow emerged from behind a lilac- 
bush with a guilty yet excited air. 

“ Young man, I ain’t given to eaves¬ 
dropping, but I was strollin’ along here 
and I heered it all; and as I was caleula- 


The Marrying of Esther 219 

tin’ to give my niece a present—” He 
broke off and laid a hand on Joe’s arm. 
“ Where is that dod-blasted fool of a 
Lanham? I’ll pay him; then I’ll break 
every bone in his dum body!” he ex¬ 
claimed, waxing profane. “ Come here 
disturbin’ decent folks’ weddin’s! Where 
is he?” 

He started off down the path, striking 
out savagely with his stick. Joe watched 
him a moment, then put after him, and 
Harry Barker followed. 

“ If this ain’t the liveliest weddin’!” 

Nevertheless, he was disappointed in 
his expectations of an encounter. When 
the trio emerged through the gap in the 
wall they found only Sarah Norton await¬ 
ing them. 

“ Lanham’s come and gone,” she an¬ 
nounced. “ No, I didn’t give him a thing, 
except a piece of my mind,” she answer¬ 
ed, in response to a look from Joe. “I 
told him that he was acting like a fool; 
that father was in for a thousand dollars 
to you in the fall, and that you would pay 
then, as you promised, and that he’d bet¬ 
ter clear out.” 

“ Oh, if I could jest git a holt of him!” 
muttered Jonas Ingram. 

“ That seemed to sober him,” continued 
the girl; “but he said he wasn’t the only 


220 Harper's Novelettes 

one that had got scared; that Merrill was 
going for his tables and chairs; but Lan- 
ham said he’d run up to the cottage, and 
if he was there, he’d send him oft. You 
see, father threw out as if he wasn’t owing 
you anything,” she added, in a lower 
voice, “ and that’s what stirred ’em up.” 

Joe turned white, in a sudden heat of 
anger—the first he had shown. “ I’ll stir 
him—” he began; then his eyes met hers. 
He reddened. “ Oh, Sarah, I’m ever so 
much obliged to you!” 

“ It was nothing. I guess it was lucky 
I wasn’t invited to the wedding, though.” 
She laughed, and started away, leaving 
Joe abashed. She glanced back. “ I hope 
none of this foolishness ’ll reach Mis’ Els- 
wortli’s ears,” she called, in a friendly 
voice. 

“ I hope it won’t,” muttered Joe, fer¬ 
vently, and stood watching her till the 
old man pulled his sleeve. 

“ Lanham may not keep his word to 
the girl. Best go down there, hadn’t we ?” 

The young man made no answer, but 
turned and ran. He longed for some one 
to wreak vengeance on. The other two 
had difficulty in keeping up with him. 
The first object that attracted their atten¬ 
tion was the bureau. It was standing be¬ 
side the back steps. Joe tried the door; 


221 


The Marrying of Esther 

it was fastened. He drew forth the key 
and fitted it into the lock, but still the 
door did not yield. He turned and faced 
the others. “ Some one’s in there!” 

Jonas Ingram broke forth into an oath. 
He shook his cane at the house. 

“ Some one’s in there, and they’ve got 
the door bolted on the inside,” continued 
Joe. His voice had a strange sound even 
to himself. He seemed to be looking on 
at his own wrath. He strode around to 
a window, but the blinds were closed; the 
blinds were closed all over the house; ev¬ 
ery door was barred. Whoever was inside 
was in utter darkness. Joe came back 
and gave the door a violent shake; then 
they all listened, but only the pecking of 
a hen along the walk broke the silence. 

“ I’ll get a crowbar,” suggested Harry, 
scowling in the fierce sunlight. Jonas 
Ingram stood with his hair blowing out 
from under his hat and his stick grasped 
firmly in his gnarled old hand. He was 
all ready to strike. His chin was thrust 
out rigidly. They both pressed close to 
Joe, but he did not heed them. He put 
one shoulder against a panel; every mus¬ 
cle was set. 

“ Whoever you arc, if I have to break 
this door down—” 

There was a soft commotion on the in- 


222 Harper’s Novelettes 

side and the bolt was drawn. Toe, with 
the other two at his heels, fairly burst 
into the darkened place, just in time to 
see a white figure dart across the room 
and cast itself in a corner. For an in¬ 
stant they could only blink. The figure 
wrapped its white arms about some ob¬ 
ject. 

“ You can have everything but this 
table; you can’t have—this.” The words 
ended in a frightened sob. 

" Esther r 

“ Oh, Joe!” She struggled to her feet, 
then shrank back against the wall. “ Oh, 
I didn’t know it was you. Go ’way! 
go ’way!” 

“ Why, Esther, what do you mean?” 
He started towards her, but she turned 
on him. 

“ Where is she ?” 

“ Where’s who ?” 

She did not reply, but standing against 
the wall, she stared at him with a passion¬ 
ate scorn. 

“You don’t mean Sarah Norton?” 
asked Joe, slowly. Esther quivered. 
“ Why, she came to tell me of the trouble 
her father was trying to get me into. But 
how did you come here, Esther? How 
did you know anything about it ?” 

She did not answer. Her head sank. 


The Marrying of Esther 223 

“ How did you, Esther ?” 

“ I saw—you in the lane,” she faltered, 
then caught up her veil as though it had 
been a pinafore. Joe went up to her, and 
Jonas Ingram took hold of Harry Barker, 
and the two stepped outside, but not out 
of ear-shot; they were still curious. They 
could hear Esther’s sobbing voice at in¬ 
tervals. “ I tried to make ’em stop, but 
they wouldn’t, and I slipped in past ’em 
and bolted the door; and when you came, 
I thought it was them—and, oh! ain’t 
they our things, Joe?” 

The old man thrust his head in at the 
door. “Yes,” he roared, then withdrew. 

“ And won’t they take the table away ?” 

“No,” he roared again. “I’d just like 
to see ’em!” 

Esther wept harder. “ Oh, I wish they 
would; I ought to give ’em up. I didn’t 
care for them after I thought—that. It 
was just that I had to have something I 
wouldn’t let go, and I tried to think only 
of saving the table for the water-set.” 

“ Come mighty near bein’ no water- 
set,” muttered Jonas to himself; then he 
turned to his companion. “Young man, 
1 guess they don’t need us no more,” he 
said. 

When he regained his sister-in-law’s, he 
encountered that lady carrying a steam- 


224 Harper's Novelettes 

ing dish. Guests stood about under the 
trees or sat at the long tables. 

“ For mercy sakes, J onas, have you seen. 
Esther? She made fuss enough about 
bavin’ that dove fixed up in the parlor, 
and she and Joe ain’t stood under it a 
minit yet.” 

“ That’s a fact,” chuckled the old fel¬ 
low. “ They ain’t stood under no dove 
of peace yet; they’re just about ready to 
now, I reckon.” 

And up through the lane, all oblivious, 
the lovers were walking slowly. Just 
before they reached the gap in the wall, 
they paused by common consent. Cherry 
and apple trees drooped over the wall; 
these had ceased blossoming, but a tan¬ 
gle of wild-rose bushes was all ablush. 
It dropped a thick harvest of petals on 
the ground. Joe bent his head; and Es¬ 
ther, resting against his shoulder, lifted 
her eyes to his face. All unconsciously 
she took the pose of the woman in the 
Erohman poster. They kissed, and then 
went on slowly. 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 

BY JULIAN RALPH 

C ORDELIA ANGELINE MA¬ 
HONEY was dressing, as she 
would say, “ to keep a date ” with 
a beau, who would soon be waiting on 
the corner nearest her home in the Big 
Barracks tenement-house. She smiled 
as she heard the shrill catcall of a lad 
in Forsyth Street. She knew it was 
Dutch Johnny’s signal to Chrissie Bergen 
to come down and meet him at the street 
doorway. Presently she heard another 
call—a birdlike whistle—and she knew 
which boy’s note it was, and which girl it 
called out of her home for a sidewalk 
stroll. She smiled, a trifle sadly, and yet 
triumphantly. She had enjoyed herself 
when she was no wiser and looked no 
higher than the younger Barracks girls, 
who took up the boys of the neighborhood 
as if there were no others. 

She was in her own little dark inner 
room, which she shared with only two 


2 26 Harper’s Novelettes 

others of the family, arranging a careful 
toilet by kerosene-light. The photograph 
of herself in trunks and tights, of which 
we heard in the story of Elsa Muller’s 
hopeless love, was before her, among sev¬ 
eral portraits of actresses and salaried 
beauties. She had taken them out from 
under the paper in the top drawer of the 
bureau. She always kept them there, and 
always took them out and spread them in 
the lamp-light when she was alone in her 
room. She glanced approvingly at the 
portrait of herself as a picture of which 
she had said to more than one girlish con¬ 
fidante that it showed as neat a figure and 
as perfectly shaped limbs as any actress’s 
she had ever seen. But the suggestion 
of a frown flitted across her brow as she 
thought how silly she was to have once 
been “ stage-struck ”—how foolish to have 
thought that mere beauty could quickly 
raise a poor girl to a high place on the 
stage. Julia Fogarty’s case proved that. 
Julia and she were stage-struck together, 
and where was Julia—or Corynne Bel¬ 
vedere, as she now called herself? She 
started well as a figurante in a comic op¬ 
era company up-town, but from that she 
dropped to a female minstrel troupe in 
the Bowery, and now, Lewy Tusch told 
Cordelia, she was “ tooing ter skirt-tance 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 227 

in ter pickernic parks for ter sick-baby 
fund, ant passin’ ter hat arount after¬ 
warts.” And evil was being whispered of 
her—a pretty high price to pay for such 
small success; and it must be true, be¬ 
cause she sometimes came home late at 
night in cabs, which are devilish, except 
when used at funerals. 

It was Cordelia who attracted Elsa 
Muller’s sweetheart, Yank Hurst, to her 
side, and left Elsa to die yearning for his 
return. And it was Cordelia who threw 
Elurst aside when he took to drink and 
stabbed the young man who, during a 
mere walk from church, took his place 
beside Cordelia. And yet Cordelia was 
only ambitious, not wicked. Few men 
live who would not look twice at her. 
She was not of the stunted tenement type, 
like her friends Rosie Mulvey and Min¬ 
nie Bechman and Julia Moriarty. She 
was tall and large and stately, and yet 
plump in every outline. Moreover, she 
had the “ style ” of an American girl, and 
looked as well in five dollars’ worth of 
clothes—all home-made, except her shoes 
and stockings—as almost any girl in 
richer circles. It was too bad that she 
was called a flirt by the young men, and 
a stuck-up thing by the girls, when in 
fact she was merely more shrewd and cal- 


228 Harper's Novelettes 

culating than the others, who were con¬ 
tent to drift out of the primary schools 
into the shops, and out of the shops into 
haphazard matrimony. Cordelia was not 
lovable, but not all of us are who may be 
better than she. She was monopolized by 
the hope of getting a man; but a mere 
alliance with trousers was not the 
sum of her hope; they must jingle with 
coin. 

It was strange, then, that she should 
be dressing to meet Jerry Donahue, who 
was no better than gilly to the Commis¬ 
sioner of Public Works, drawing a small 
salary from a clerkship he never filled, 
while he served the Commissioner as a 
second left hand. But if we could see 
into Cordelia’s mind we would be sur¬ 
prised to discover that she did not regard 
herself as flesh-and-blood Mahoney, but 
as romantic Clarice Delamour, and she 
only thought of Jerry as James the but¬ 
ler. The voracious reader of the novels 
of to-day will recall the story of Clarice, 
or Only a : Lady’s - Maid, which many 
consider the best of the several absorb¬ 
ing tales that Lulu Jane Tilley has writ¬ 
ten. Cordelia had read it twenty times, 
and almost knew it by heart. Her 
constant dream was that she could be 
another Clarice, and shape her life like 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 229 

hers. The plot of the novel needs to be 
briefly told, since it guided Cordelia’s 
course. 

Clarice was maid to a wealthy society 
dowager. James the butler fell in love 
with Clarice when she first entered the 
household, and she, hearing the servants’ 
gossip about James’s savings and sal¬ 
ary, had encouraged his attentions. lie 
pressed her to marry him. But young 
Nicholas Stuyvesant came home from 
abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice 
nursing her. Every day he noticed the 
modest rosy maid moving noiselessly 
about like a sunbeam. Iler physical per¬ 
fection profoundly impressed him. In 
her presence he constantly talked to his 
mother about his admiration for healthy 
women. Each evening Clarice reported 
to him the condition of the mother, and 
on one occasion mentioned that she had 
never known ache, pain, or malady in 
her life. The young man often chatted 
with her in the drawing-room, and James 
the butler got his conge. Mr. Stuyvesant 
induced his mother to make Clarice her 
companion, and then he met her at pict¬ 
ure exhibitions, and in Central Park by 
chance, and next—every one will recall 
the exciting scene—he paid passionate 
court to her “ in the pink sewing-room. 


230 


Harper's Novelettes 


where she had reclined on soft silken 
sofa pillows, with her tiny slippers upon 
the head of a lion whose skin formed a 
rug before her.” Clarice thought him 
unprincipled, and repulsed him. When 
the widow recovered her health and went 
to Newport, the former maid met all so¬ 
ciety there. A gifted lawyer fell a vic¬ 
tim to Clarice's charms, and, on a moon¬ 
lit porch overlooking the sea, warned her 
against young Stuyvesant. On learning 
that the roue had already attempted to 
weaken the girl’s high principles, to res¬ 
cue her he made her his wife. He was 
soon afterward elected Mayor of New 
York, but remained a suitor for his beau¬ 
tiful wife’s approbation, waiting upon her 
in gilded halls with the fidelity of a 
knight of old. 

Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied 
herself just like her — beautiful, ambi¬ 
tious, poor, with a future of her own 
carving. Of course such a case is phe¬ 
nomenal. No other young woman was 
ever so ridiculous. 

“ You have on your besht dresh, Cor- 
dalia,” said her mother. “ It ’ll soon be 
wore out, an’ ye’ll git no other, wid your 
father oidle, an’ no wan aimin’ a pinny 
but you an’ Johnny an’ Sarah Rosabel. 
Rwhere are ye goin’?” 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 231 

“ I won’t be gone long,” said Cordelia, 
half out of the hall door. 

“ Cordalia Angeline, darlin’,” said her 
mother, “ mind, now, doan’t let them be 
talkin’ about ye, fwherever ye go—shakin’ 
yer shkirts an’ rollin’ yer eyes. It doan’t 
luk well for a gyurl to be makin’ hersel’ 
attractive.” 

“ Oh, mother. I’m not attractive, and 
you know it.” 

With her head full of meeting Jerry 
Donahue, Cordelia tripped down the four 
flights of stairs to the street door. As 
Clarice, she thought of Jerry as James 
the butler; in fact, all the beaux she had 
had of late were so many repetitions of 
the unfortunate James in her mind. All 
the other characters in her acquaintance 
were made to fit more or less loosely into 
her romance life, and she thought of 
everything she did as if it all happened 
in Lulu Jane Tilley’s beautiful novel. 
Let the reader fancy, if possible, what a 
feat that must have been for a tenement 
girl who had never known what it was to 
have a parlor, in our sense of the word, 
who had never known courtship to be 
carried on indoors, except in a tenement 
hallway, and who had to imagine that 
the sidewalk flirtations of actual life were 
meetings in private parks, that the 


232 Harper's Novelettes 

wharves and public squares and tenement 
roofs where she had seen all the young 
men and women making love were heavily 
carpeted drawing-rooms, broad manor- 
house verandas, and the fragrant conser¬ 
vatories of luxurious mansions! But Cor¬ 
delia managed all this mental necroman¬ 
cy easily, to her own satisfaction. And 
now she was tripping down the bare 
wooden stairs beside the dark greasy wall, 
and thinking of her future husband, the 
rich Mayor, who must be either the bach¬ 
elor police captain of the precinct, or 
George Fletcher, the wealthy and unmar¬ 
ried factory-owner near by, or, perhaps. 
Senator Eisenstone, the district leader, 
who, she was forced to reflect, was an un¬ 
likely hero for a Catholic girl, since he 
was a Hebrew. But just as she reached 
the street door and decided that Jerry 
would do well enough as a mere tempo¬ 
rary James the butler, and while Jerry 
was waiting for her on the corner, she 
stepped from the stoop directly in front 
of George Fletcher. 

“ Good evening,” said the wealthy 
young employer. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Fletcher.” 

“ It’s very embarrassing,” said Mr. 
Fletcher: “ I know your given name— 
Cordelia, isn’t it?—but your last na— 



Cordelia's Night of Romance 233 

Oh, thank you—Miss Mahoney, of course. 
You know we met at that very queer wed¬ 
ding in the home of my little apprentice, 
Joe—the line-man’s wedding, you know.” 

“To he!” Cordelia giggled. “Wasn’t 
that a terrible strange wedding? I think 
it was just terrible.” 

“ Were you going somewhere ?” 

“ Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher,” with 
another nervous giggle or two. “ I have 
no plans on me mind, only to get out of 
doors. It’s terrible hot, ain’t it?” 

“ May I take a walk with you, Miss 
Mahoney ?” 

It seemed to her that if he had called 
her Clarice the whole novel would have 
come true then and there. 

“ I can’t be out very late, Mr. Fletcher,” 
said she, with a giggle of delight. 

“Are you sure I am not disarranging 
your plans? Had you no engagements?” 

“ Oh no,” said she; “ I was only going 
out with me lonely.” 

“Let us take just a short walk, then,” 
said Fletcher; “only you must be the 
man and take me in charge. Miss Maho¬ 
ney, for I never walked with a young 
lady in my life.” 

“Oh, certainly not; you never did—I 
don’t think.” 

“ Upon my honor, Miss Mahoney, I 


234 


Harper's Novelettes 


know only one woman in this city—Miss 
Whitfield, the doctor’s daughter, who 
lives in the same house with you; and 
only one other in the world—my aunt, 
who brought me up, in Vermont.” 

Well indeed did Cordelia know this. 
All the neighborhood knew it, and most 
of the other girls were conscious of a lit¬ 
tle flutter in their breasts when his eyes 
fell upon them in the streets, for it was 
the gossip of all who knew his workmen 
that the prosperous ladder-builder lived 
in his factory, where he had spent the 
life of a monk, without any society ex¬ 
cept of his canaries, his books, and his 
workmen. 

“Well, I declare!” sighed Cordelia. 
“ How terrible cunning you men are, to 
get up such a story to make all the girls 
think you’re romantic!” 

But, oh, how happy Cordelia was! 
At last she had met her prince—the fu¬ 
ture Mayor—her Sultan of the gilded 
halls. In that humid, sticky, midsum¬ 
mer heat among the tenements, every 
other woman dragged along as if she 
weighed a thousand pounds, but Cor¬ 
delia felt like a feather floating among 
clouds. 

The babel—did the reader ever walk up 
Forsyth Street on a hot night, into Sec- 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 235 

ond Avenue, and across to Avenue A, and 
up to Tompkins Park? The noise of the 
tens of thousands on the pavements makes 
a babel that drowns the racket of the carts 
and cars. The talking of so many per¬ 
sons, the squalling of so many babies, the 
mothers scolding and slapping every 
third child, the yelling of the children at 
play, the shouts and loud repartee of the 
men and women—all these noises rolled 
together in the air makes a steady hum 
and roar that not even the breakers on a 
hard sea-beach can equal. You might 
say that the tenements were empty, as 
only the very sick, who could not move, 
were in them. For miles and miles they 
were hare of humanity, each flat unguard¬ 
ed and unlocked, with the women on the 
sidewalks, with the youngest children in 
arms or in perambulators, while those of 
the next sizes romped in the streets; with 
the girls and boys of fourteen giggling 
in groups in the doorways (the age and 
places where sex first asserts itself), and 
only the young men and women miss¬ 
ing; for they were in the parks, on the 
wharves, and on the roofs, all frolicking 
and love-making. 

And every house front was like a 
Russian stove, expending the heat it 
had sucked from the all-day sun. And 


236 Harper's Novelettes 

every door and window breathed bad 
air—air without oxygen, rich and rank 
and stifling. 

But Cordelia was Clarice, the future 
Mayoress. She did not know she was 
picking a tiresome way around the boys 
at leap-frog, and the mothers and babies 
and baby-carriages. She did not notice 
the smells, or feel the bumps she got from 
those who ran against her. She thought 
she was in the blue drawing-room at New¬ 
port, where a famous Hungarian count 
was trilling the soft prelude to a csdrdds 
on the piano, and Mr. Stuyvesant had 
just introduced her to the future Mayor, 
who was spellbound by her charms, and 
was by her side, a captive. She reached 
out her hand, and it touched Mr. Fletch¬ 
er’s arm (just as a ragamuffin propelled 
himself head first against her), and Mr. 
Fletcher bent his elbow, and her wrist 
rested in the crook of his arm. Oh, her 
dream was true; her dream was true! 

Mr. Fletcher, on the other hand, was 
hardly in a more natural relation. He 
was trying to think how the men talked 
to women in all the literature he had 
read. The myriad jokes about the fond¬ 
ness of girls for ice-cream recurred to 
him, and he risked everything on their 
fidelity to fact. 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 237 

“Are you fond of ice-cream?” he in¬ 
quired. 

“Oh no; I don’t think,” said Cordelia. 
“What ’ll you ask next? What girl 
ain’t crushed on ice-cream, I’d like to 
know ?” 

“ Bo you know of a nice place to get 
some ?” 

“ Bo I ? The Butchman’s, on the av’- 
noo, another block up, is the finest in the 
city. You get mo—that is, you get every¬ 
thing ’way up in G there, with cakes on 
the side, and it don’t cost no more than 
anywhere else.” 

So to the German’s they went, and 
Clarice fancied herself at the Casino in 
Newport. All the girls around her, who 
seemed to be trying to swallow the spoons, 
took on the guise of blue-blooded belles, 
while the noisy boys and young men 
(calling out, “ TIully gee, fellers! look at 
Nifty gittin’ out der winder widout pay¬ 
in’!” and, “Say, Tilly, what kind er 
cream is dat you’re feedin’ your face 
wid?”) seemed to her so many millionaires 
and the exquisite sons thereof. To Mr. 
Fletcher the German’s back-yard saloon, 
with its green lattice walls, and its rusty 
dead Christmas trees in painted butter- 
kegs, appeared uncommonly brilliant and 
hue. The fact that whenever he took a 


238 


Harper's Novelettes 


swallow of water the ice-cream turned to 
cold candle-grease in his mouth made no 
difference. He was happy, and Cordelia 
was in an ecstasy by the time he had paid 
a shock-headed, bare-armed German wait¬ 
er, and they v r ere again on the avenue 
side by side. She put out her hand and 
rested it on his arm again—to make sure 
she was Clarice. 

One would like to know whether, in 
the breasts of such as these, familiar 
environment exerts any remarkable in¬ 
fluence. If so, it could have been in but 
one direction. For that part of town 
was one vast nursery. Everywhere, on 
every side, were the swarming babies—a 
baby for every flag-stone in the pave¬ 
ments. Babies and babies, and little be¬ 
sides babies, except larger children and 
the mothers. Perambulators with two, 
even three, baby passengers; mothers with 
as many as five children trailing after 
them; babies in broad baggy laps, babies 
at the breast, babies creeping, toppling, 
screaming, overflowing into the gutters. 
Such was the unbroken scene from the 
Big Barracks to Tompkins Square; ay, to 
Harlem and to the East Biver, and almost 
to Broadway. In the park, as if the street 
scenes had been merely preliminary, the 
paths were alive, wriggling, with babies 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 239 

of every age, from the new-born to the 
children in pigtails and knickerbockers 
—and, lo! these were already paired and 
practising at courtship. The walk that 
Cordelia was taking was amid a fever, 
a delirium, of maternity—a rhapsody, a 
baby’s opera, if one considered its noise. 
In that vast region no one inquired 
whether marriage was a failure. Nothing 
that is old and long-beloved and human 
is a failure there. 

In Tompkins Park, while they dodged 
babies and stepped around babies and 
over them, they saw many happy couples 
on the settees, and they noticed that often 
the men held their arms around the 
waists of their sweethearts. Girls, too, 
in other instances, leaned loving heads 
against the young men’s breasts, blissfully 
regardless of publicity. They passed a 
young man and a woman kissing passion¬ 
ately, as kissing is described by unmar¬ 
ried girl novelists. Cordelia thought it no 
harm to nudge Mr. Fletcher and whisper: 

“ Sakes alive! They’re right in it, 
ain’t they. 1 It’s funny when you feel 
that way,’ ain’t it?” 

As many another man who does not 
know the frankness and simplicity of the 
plain people might have done, Mr. Fletch¬ 
er misjudged the girl. lie thought her 


240 Harpers Novelettes 

the sort of girl he was far from seeking. 
He grew instantly cold and reserved, and 
she knew, vaguely, that she had displeased 
him. 

“ I think people who make love in pub¬ 
lic should be locked up,” said he. 

“ Some folks wants everybody put away 
that enjoys themselves,” said Cordelia. 
Then, lest she had spoken too strongly, 
she added, “ Present company not in¬ 
tended, Mr. Fletcher, but you said that 
like them mission folks that come around 
praising themselves and tellin’ us all we’re 
wicked.” 

“And do you think a girl can he good 
who behaves so in public ?” 

“ I know plenty that’s done it,” said 
she; “ and I don’t know any girls but 
what’s good. They ’ain’t got wings, may¬ 
be, but you don’t want to monkey with 
’em, neither.” 

He recollected her words for many a 
year afterward and pondered them, and 
perhaps they enlarged his understanding. 
She also often thought of his condemna¬ 
tion of love-making out-of-doors. Kissing 
in public, especially promiscuous kissing, 
she knew to be a debatable pastime, but 
she also knew that there was not a flat in 
the Big Barracks in which a girl could 
carry on a courtship. Fancy her attempt- 


Cordelia’s Night of Romance 241 

ing it in her front room, with the room 
choked with people, with the baby squall¬ 
ing 1 , and her little brothers and sisters 
quarrelling, with her mother entertaining 
half a dozen women visitors with tea or 
beer, and with a man or two dropping in 
to smoke with her father! Parlor court¬ 
ship was to her, like precise English, a 
thing only known in novels. The thought 
of novels floated her soul back into the 
dream state. 

“ I think Cordelia’s a pretty name,” 
said Eletcher, cold at heart but strug¬ 
gling to be companionable. 

“ I don’t,” said Cordelia. “ I’m not at 
all crushed on it. Your name’s terrible 
pretty. I think my three names looks 
like a map of Ireland when they’re writ¬ 
ten down. I know a killin’ name for a 
girl. It’s Clarice. Maybe some day I’ll 
give you a dare. I’ll double dare you, 
maybe, to call me Clarice.” 

Oh, if he only would, she thought—if 
he would only call her so irow! But she 
forgot how unelastic his strange routine 
of life must have left him, and she did 
not dream how her behavior in the park 
had displeased him. 

" Cordelia is a pretty name,” he repeat¬ 
ed. "At any rate, I think we should try 
to make the most and best of whatever 
16 


* 


242 Harper's Novelettes 

name has come to ns. I wouldn’t sail 
under false colors for a minute.” 

“Oh!” said she, with a giggle to hide 
her disappointment; “ you’re so terrible 
wise! When you talk them big words you 
can pass me in a walk.” 

Anxious to display her great conquest 
to the other girls of the Barracks neigh¬ 
borhood, Cordelia persuaded Mr. Fletcher 
to go to what she called “ the dock,” to en¬ 
joy the cool breath of the river. All the 
piers and wharves are called “ docks ” by 
the people. Those which are semi-public 
and are rented to miscellaneous excursion 
and river steamers are crowded nightly. 

The wharf to which our couple strolled 
was a mere flooring above the water, 
edged with a stout string-piece, which 
formed a bench for the mothers. They 
were there in groups, some seated on the 
string-piece with babes in arms or with 
perambulators before them, and others, 
facing these, standing and joining in the 
gossip, and swaying to and fro to soothe 
their little ones. Those who gave their 
offspring the breast did so publicly, un¬ 
embarrassed by a modesty they would 
have considered false. A few youthful 
couples, boy by girl and girl by boy, sat 
on the string-piece and whispered, or 
bandied fun with those other lovers who 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 243 

f 

patrolled the flooring of the wharf. A 
“ gang ” of rude young men—toughs— 
walked up and down, teasing the girls, 
wrestling, scuffling, and roaring out bad 
language. Troops of children played at 
leap-frog, high-spy, jack-stones, bean-bag, 
hop-scotch, and tag. At the far end of 
the pier some young men and women 
waltzed, while a lad on the string-piece 
played for them on his mouth-organ. A 
steady, cool, vivifying breeze from the 
bay swept across the wharf and fanned 
all the idlers, and blew out of their heads 
almost all recollection of the furnacelike 
heat of the town. 

Cordelia forgot her desire to display 
her conquest. She forgot her true self. 
She likened the wharf to that “ lordly 
veranda overlooking the sea,” where the 
future Mayor begged Clarice to be his 
bride. She knew just what she would say 
when her prince spoke his lines. She 
and Mr. Fletcher were just about to seat 
themselves on the great rim of the wharf, 
when an uproar of the harsh, froglike 
voices of half-grown men caused them to 
turn around. They saw Jerry Donahue 
striding towards them, but with difficulty, 
because half a dozen lads and youths were 
endeavoring to hold him back. 

“ Dat’s Mr. Fletcher,” they said. “ It 


\ ♦ 


244 


Harpers Novelettes 




ain’t his fault, Jerry. He’s dead square; 
he’s a gent, Jerry.” 

The politician’s gilly tore himself away 
from his friends. The gang of toughs 
gathered behind the others. Jerry plant¬ 
ed himself in front of Cordelia. Evident¬ 
ly he did net know the submissive part 
he should have played in Cordelia’s ro¬ 
mance. James the butler made no out¬ 
break, hut here was Jerry angry through 
and through. 

“ You didn’t keep de date wid me,” he 
began. 

“Oh, Jerry, I did—I tried to, but 
you—” Cordelia was red with shame. 

“ The hell you did! Wasn’t I—” 

“Here!” said Mr. Eletcher; “you can’t 
swear at this lady.” 

“ Why wouldn’t I ?” Jerry asked. 
“ What would you do ?” 

“ He’s right, Jerry. Leave him be— 
see?” said the chorus of Jerry’s friends. 

“A-a-a-h!” snarled Jerry. “Let him 
leave me be, then. Cordelia, I heard you 
was a dead fraud, an’ now I know it, and 
I’m a-tellin’ you so, straight—see? I was 
a-waitin’ ’cross der street, an’ I seen you 
come out an’ meet dis mug, an’ you never 
turned yer head to see was I on me post. 
I seen dat, an’ I’m a-tellin’ yer friend just 
der kind of a racket you give me, der 


Cordelia's Night of Romance 245 

same’s you’ve give a hundred other fel¬ 
lers. Den, if he likes it he knows what 
he’s git tin’.” 

Jerry was so angry that he all but 
pushed his distorted face against that of 
the humiliated girl as he denounced her. 
Mr. Fletcher gently moved her backward 
a step or two, and advanced to where she 
had stood. 

“ That will do,” he said to Jerry. “I 
want no trouble, but you’ve said enough. 
If there’s more, say it to me.” 

“ A-a-a-h!” exclaimed the gilly, expec¬ 
torating theatrically over his shoulder. 
“ Me friends is on your side, an’ I ain’t 
pickin’ no muss wid you. But she’s got 
der front of der City Hall to do me like 
she done. And say, fellers, den she was 
goin’ ter give me a song an’ dance ’bout 
lookin’ fer me. Ba-a-a! She knows my 
’pinion of her—see ?” 

The crowd parted to let Mr. Fletcher 
finish his first evening’s gallantry to a 
lady by escorting Cordelia to her home. 
It was a chilly and mainly a silent jour¬ 
ney. Cordelia falteringly apologized for 
Jerry’s misbehavior, but she inferred 
from what Mr. Fletcher said that he did 
not fully join her in blaming the angry 
youth. Mr. Fletcher touched her finger¬ 
tips in bidding her good-night, and noth- 


246 Harper's Novelettes 

mg was said of a meeting in the future. 
Clarice was forgotten, and Cordelia was 
not only herself again, but quite a miser¬ 
able self, for her sobs awoke the little 
brother and sister who shared her bed. 


The Prize -Fund Beneficiary 

BY E. A. ALEXANDER 


M TSS SNELL began to apologize 
for interrupting the work almost 
before she came in. The Paint¬ 
er, who grudgingly opened one half of 
the folding-door wide enough to let her 
pass into the studio, was annoyed to 
observe that, in spite of her apologies, 
she was loosening the furs about her 
throat as if in preparation for a lengthy 
visit. Then for the first time, behind 
her tall, black-draped figure, he caught 
sight of her companion, who was shorter, 
and whose draperies were of a less ample 
character — for Miss Snell, being tall 
and thin, resorted to voluminous gar¬ 
ments to conceal her slimness of person. 
A large plumed hat accentuated her sal¬ 
lowness and sharpness of feature, and 
her dark eyes, set under heavy black 
brows, intensified her look of unhealthy 
pallor. 

She was perfectly at her ease, and 


248 


Harper's Novelettes 


introduced her companion. Miss Price, 
in a few words, explaining that the lat¬ 
ter had come over for a year or so to 
study, and was anxious to have the best 
advice about it. 

“ So I brought her straight here,” Miss 
Snell announced, triumphantly. 

Miss Price seemed a trifle overcome 
by the novelty of her surroundings, but 
managed to say, in a high nasal voice, 
that she had already begun to work at 
Julian’s, but did not find it altogether 
satisfactory. 

The Painter, looking at her indifferent¬ 
ly, was roused to a sudden interest by 
her face. Her features and complexion 
were certainly pleasing, but the untidy 
mass of straggling hair topped by a bat¬ 
tered straw sailor hat diverted the atten¬ 
tion of a casual observer from her really 
unusual delicacy of feature and coloring. 
She was tall and slim, although now she 
was dwarfed by Miss Snell’s gaunt fig¬ 
ure. A worn dress and shabby green 
cape fastened at the neck by a button 
hanging precariously on its last thread 
completed her very unsuitable winter at¬ 
tire. 

Outside the great studio window a cold 
December twilight was settling down over 
roofs covered with snow and icicles, and 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 249 

the Painter shivered involuntarily as he 
noticed the insufficiency of her wraps for 
such weather, and got up to stir the fire 
which glowed in the big stove. 

In one corner his model waited patient¬ 
ly for the guests to depart, and he now 
dismissed her for the day, eliciting faint 
protestations from Miss Snell, who, how¬ 
ever, was settling down comfortably in 
an easy-chair by the fire, with an evident 
intention of staying indefinitely. Miss 
Price’s large, somewhat expressionless 
blue eyes were taking in the whole stu¬ 
dio, and the Painter could feel that she 
was distinctly disappointed by her inspec¬ 
tion. She had evidently anticipated some¬ 
thing much grander, and this bare room 
was not the ideal place she had fancied 
the studio of a world-renowned painter 
would prove to be. 

Bare painted walls, a peaked roof with 
a window reaching far overhead, a pol¬ 
ished floor, one or two chairs and a di¬ 
van, the few necessary implements of his 
profession, and many canvases faced to 
the wall, but little or no bric-a-brac or 
delightful studio properties. The Painter 
was also conscious that her inspection in¬ 
cluded him personally, and was painfully 
aware that she was regarding him with 
the same feeling of disappointment; she 


2 50 Harper's Novelettes 

quite evidently thought him too young 
and insignificant looking for a person of 
his reputation. 

Miss Snell had not given him time to 
reply to Miss Price’s remark about her 
study at Julian’s, but prattled on about 
her own work and the unsurmountable 
difficulties that lay in the way of a wom¬ 
an’s successful career as a painter. 

“ I have been studying for years under 
-said Miss Snell, “ and real¬ 
ly I have no time to lose. It will end 
by my simply going to him and saying, 

quite frankly: ‘Mow, Monsieur -, I 

have been in your atelier for four years, 
and I can’t afford to waste another min¬ 
ute. There are no two ways about it. 
You positively must tell me how to do it. 
You really must not keep me waiting any 
longer. I insist upon it.’ Plow discour¬ 
aging it is!” she sighed. " It seems quite 
impossible to find any one who is willing 
to give the necessary information.” 

Miss Price’s wandering eyes had at last 
found a resting-place on a large, half-fin¬ 
ished canvas standing on an easel. Some¬ 
thing attractive in the pose and turn of 
her head made the Painter watch her as 
he lent a feeble attention to Miss Snell’s 
conversation. 

Miss Price’s lips were very red, and the 





The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 251 

clear freshness of extreme youth bloomed 
in her cheeks; she was certainly charm¬ 
ing. During one of Miss Snell’s rare 
pauses she spoke, and her thin high voice 
came with rather a shock from between 
her full lips. 

“ May I look ?” was her unnecessary 
question, for her eyes had never left the 
canvas on the easel since they had first 
rested there. She rose as she spoke, and 
went over to the painting. 

The Painter pulled himself out of the 
cushions on the divan where he had been 
lounging, and went over to push the big 
canvas into a better light. Then he stood, 
while the girl gazed at it, saying nothing, 
and apparently oblivious to everything 
but the work before him. 

He was roused, not by Miss Price, who 
remained admiringly silent, but by the 
enraptured Miss Snell, who had also risen, 
gathering furs and wraps about her, and 
was now ecstatically voluble in her ad¬ 
miration. English being insufficient for 
the occasion, she had to resort to French 
for the expression of her enthusiasm. 

The Painter said nothing, but watched 
the younger girl, who turned away at last 
with a sigh of approbation. lie was stand¬ 
ing under the window, leaning against a 
table littered with paints and brushes. 


252 Harper's Novelettes 

“ Stay where you are!” exclaimed Miss 
Snell, excitedly. “ Is lie not charming, 
Cora, in that half-light? You must let 
me paint you just so some day—you must 
indeed.” She clutched Miss Price and 
turned her forcibly in his direction. 

The Painter, confused by this unex¬ 
pected onslaught, moved hastily away 
and busied himself with a pretence of 
clearing the table. 

“ I—I should be delighted,” he stam¬ 
mered, in his embarrassment, and he 
caught Miss Price’s eye, in which he fan¬ 
cied a smile was lurking. 

u But you have not given Miss Price 
a word of advice about her work,” said 
Miss Snell, as she fastened her wraps 
preparatory to departure. She seemed 
quite oblivious to the fact that she had 
monopolized all the conversation her¬ 
self. 

He turned politely to Miss Price, who 
murmured something about Julian’s be¬ 
ing so badly ventilated, but gave him no 
clew as to her particular branch of the 
profession. Miss Snell, however, supplied 
all details. It seemed Miss Price was 
sharing Miss Snell’s studio, having been 
sent over by the Lynxville, Massachusetts, 
Sumner Prize Pund, for which she had 
successfully competed, and which pro- 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 253 

vided a meagre allowance for two years’ 
study abroad. 

“ She wants to paint heads,” said Miss 
Snell; and in reply to a remark about the 
great amount of study required to accom¬ 
plish this desire, surprised him by saying, 
“ Oh, she only w r ants to paint them well 
enough to teach, not well enough to sell.” 

“ I’ll drop in and see your work some 
afternoon,” promised the Painter, warmed 
by their evident intention of leaving; and 
he escorted them to the landing, warning 
them against the dangerous steepness of 
his stairway, which wound down in al¬ 
most murky darkness. 

Ten minutes later the centre panel of 
his door displayed a card bearing these 
words: “ At home only after six o’clock.” 

“ I wonder I never thought of doing 
this before,” he reflected, as he lit a cig¬ 
arette and strolled off to a neighboring 
restaurant; “I am always out by that 
hour.” 

Several weeks elapsed before he saw 
Miss Price again, for he promptly forgot 
his promise to visit her studio and inspect 
her work. Ilis own work was very ab¬ 
sorbing just then, and the short winter 
days all too brief for its accomplishment, 
lie was struggling to complete the large 


254 


Harpers Novelettes 


canvas tliat Miss Snell had so volubly 
admired during her visit, and it really 
seemed to be progressing. But the weather 
changed suddenly from frost to thaw, and 
he woke one morning to find little run¬ 
nels of dirty water coursing down his 
window and dismally dripping into the 
muddy street below. It made him feel 
blue, and his big picture, which had 
seemed so promising the day before, 
looked hopelessly bad in this new mood. 
So he determined to take a day off, and, 
after his coffee, strolled out into the Lux¬ 
embourg Gardens. There the statues were 
green with mouldy dampness, and the 
paths had somewhat the consistency of 
very thin oatmeal porridge. Suddenly 
the sun came out brightly, and he found 
a partially dry bench, where he sat down 
to brood upon the utter worthlessness of 
things in general and the Luxembourg 
statuary in particular. The sunny fagade 
of the palace glittered in the brightness. 
One of his own pictures hung in its gal¬ 
lery. 11 It is bad/’ he said to himself, 
“ hopelessly bad,” and he gloomily felt 
the strongest proof of its worthlessness 
was its popularity with the public. lie 
would probably go on thinking this un¬ 
til the weather or his mood changed. 

As his eyes strayed from the palace, he 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 255 

glanced up a long vista between leafless 
trees and muddy grass-plats. A familiar 
figure in a battered straw hat and scanty 
green cloak was advancing in his direc¬ 
tion ; the wind, blowing back the fringe of 
disfiguring short hair, disclosed a pure un¬ 
broken line of delicate profile, strangely 
simple, and recalling the profiles in Bot¬ 
ticelli’s lovely fresco in the Louvre. Miss 
Price, for it was she, carried a painting- 
box, and under one arm a stretcher that 
gave her infinite trouble whenever the 
wind caught it. As she passed, the Painter 
half started up to join her, but she gave 
him such a cold nod that his intention 
was nipped in the bud. He felt snubbed, 
and sank back on his bench, taking a 
malicious pleasure in observing that, 
womanlike, she ploughed through all the 
deepest puddles in her path, making great 
splashes about the hem of her skirt, that 
fluttered out behind her as she walked, 
for her hands were filled, and she had no 
means of holding it up. 

The Painter resented his snubbing. He 
was used to the most humble deference 
from the art students of the quarter, who 
hung upon his slightest word, and were 
grateful for every stray crumb of his at¬ 
tention. 

He now lost what little interest he had 


256 


Harper's Novelettes 


previously taken in his surroundings. 
Just before him in a large open space re¬ 
served for the boys to play handball was 
a broken sheet of glistening water reflect¬ 
ing the blue sky, the trees rattled their 
branches about in the wind, and now and 
then a tardy leaf fluttered down from 
where it had clung desperately late into 
the winter. The gardens w 7 ere almost de¬ 
serted. It was too early for the throng 
of beribboned nurses and howling infants 
who usually haunt its benches. One or 
two pedestrians hurried across the garden, 
evidently taking the route to make short¬ 
cuts to their destinations, and not for the 
pleasure of lounging among its blustery 
attractions. 

After idling an hour on his bench, he 
went to breakfast with a friend who 
chanced to live conveniently near, and 
where he made himself very disagreeable 
by commenting unfavorably on the work 
in progress and painting in particular. 
Then he brushed himself up and started 
off for the rue Notre Dame des Champs, 
where Miss Snell’s studio was situated. It 
was one of a number huddled together in 
an old and rather dilapidated building, 
and the porter at the entrance gave him 
minute directions as to its exact location, 
but after stumbling up three flights of 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 257 

dark stairs he had no trouble in finding 
it, for Miss Snell’s name, preceded by a 
number of initials, shone out from a door 
directly in front of him as he reached the 
landing. 

He knocked, and for several minutes 
there was a wild scurrying within and a 
rattle and clash of crockery. Then Miss 
Snell appeared at the door, and exclaimed, 
in delighted surprise: 

“ How do you do? We had quite given 
you up.” 

She looked taller and longer than ever 
swathed in a blue painting-apron and 
grasping her palette and brushes. She 
had to apologize for not shaking hands 
with him, because her fingers were cov¬ 
ered with paint that had been hastily but 
ineffectually wiped off on a rag before 
she answered his knock. 

He murmured something about not 
coming before because of his work, but 
she would not let him finish, saying, in¬ 
tensely, 

“ We know how precious every minute 
is to you.” 

Miss Price came reluctantly forward 
and shook hands; she had evidently not 
been painting, for her fingers were quite 
clean. Short ragged hair once more fell 
over her forehead, and the Painter felt a 

17 


258 Harpers Novelettes 

shock of disappointment, and wondered 
why he had thought her so fine when she 
passed him in the morning. 

“ I was just going to paint Cora,” an¬ 
nounced Miss Snell. i( She is taking a 
holiday this afternoon, and we were hunt¬ 
ing for a pose when you knocked.” 

“ Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said, 
smiling. 11 Perhaps I can help.” 

Miss Snell was in a flutter at once, and 
protested that she should be almost afraid 
to work while he was there. 

“ In that case I shall leave at once,” he 
said; but his chair was comfortable, and 
he made no motion to go. 

“ What a queer little place it is!” he 
reflected, as he looked about. “All sorts 
of odds and ends stuck about helter-skel¬ 
ter, and the house-keeping things trying 
to masquerade as bric-a-brac.” 

Cora Price looked decidedly sulky when 
she realized that the Painter intended to 
stay, and seeing this he became rooted in 
his intention. He wondered why she took 
this particular attitude towards him, and 
concluded she was piqued because of his 
delay in calling. She acted like a spoiled 
child, and caused Miss Snell, who was 
overcome by his condescension in stay¬ 
ing, no little embarrassment. 

It was quite evident from her behavior 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 259 

that Miss Price was impressed with her 
own importance as the beneficiary of the 
Lynxville Prize Fund, and would require 
the greatest deference from her acquaint¬ 
ances in consequence. 

“ Here, Cora, try this,” said Miss Snell, 
planting a small three-legged stool on a 
rickety model-stand. 

“ Might I make a suggestion ?” said the 
Painter, coolly. “ I should push back all 
the hair on her forehead; it gives a finer 
line.” 

“ Why, of course!” said Miss Snell. “ I 
wonder we never thought of that before. 
Cora dear, you are much better with your 
hair back.” 

Cora said nothing, but the Botticelli 
profile glowered ominously against a 
background of sage - green which Miss 
Snell was elaborately draping behind it. 

u If I might advise again,” the Paint¬ 
er said, “ I would take that down and 
paint her quite simply against the gray 
wall.” 

Miss Snell was quite willing to adopt 
every suggestion. She produced her 
materials and a fresh canvas, and began 
making a careful drawing, which, as it 
progressed, filled the Painter’s soul with 
awe. 

“ I feel awfully like trying it myself,” 


260 Harper's Novelettes 

he said, after watching her for a few mo¬ 
ments. “ Can I have a bit of canvas ?” 

“ Take anything,” exclaimed Miss 
Snell; and he helped himself, refusing the 
easel which she wanted to force upon him, 
and propping his little stretcher up on a 
chair. Miss Snell stopped her drawing to 
watch him commence. It made her rather 
nervous to see how much paint he 
squeezed out on the palette; it seemed to 
her a reckless prodigality. 

He eyed her assortment of brushes 
dubiously, selecting three from the drag¬ 
gled limp collection. 

Cora was certainly a fine subject, in 
spite of her sulkiness, and he grew ab¬ 
sorbed in his work, and painted away, 
with Miss Snell at his elbow making lit¬ 
tle staccato remarks of admiration as the 
sketch progressed. Suddenly he jumped 
up, realizing how long he had kept the 
young model. 

“ Dear me,” he cried, u you must be ex¬ 
hausted!” and he ran to help her down 
from the model-stand. 

She did look tired, and Miss Snell sug¬ 
gested tea, which he stayed to share. 
Cora became less and less sulky, and when 
at last he remembered that he had come to 
see her work, she produced it with less 
unwillingness than he had expected. 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 261 

He was rather floored by her produc¬ 
tions. As far as he could judge from 
what she showed him, she was hopelessly 
without talent, and he could only wonder 
which of these remarkably bad studies 
had won for her the Lynxville Sumner 
Prize Fund. 

He tried to give her some advice, and 
was thanked when she put her things 
away. 

Then they all looked at his sketch, 
which Miss Snell pronounced “ too charm¬ 
ing/’ and Cora plainly thought did not do 
her justice. 

“ I wish you would pose a few times 
for me, Miss Price,” he said, before leav¬ 
ing. “ I should like very much to paint 
you, and it would be doing me a great 
favor.” 

The girl did not respond to this request 
with any eagerness. He fancied he could 
see she was feeling huffy again at his 
meagre praise of her work. 

Miss Snell, however, did not allow her 
to answer, but rapturously promised that 
Cora should sit as often as he liked, and 
paid no attention to the girl’s protest that 
she had no time to spare. 

“ This has been simply in - spiring!” 
said Miss Snell, as she bade him good-bye, 
and he left very enthusiastic about Cora’s 


262 


Harper's Novelettes 


profile, and with his hand covered with 
paint from Miss Snell’s door-knob. 

In spite of Miss Snell’s assurance that 
Cora would pose, the Painter was con¬ 
vinced that she would not, if a suitable 
excuse could be invented. Feeling 1 this, 
he wrote her a most civil note about it. 
The answer came promptly, and did not 
surprise him. 

She was very sorry indeed, but she had 
no leisure hours at her disposal, and al¬ 
though she felt honored, she really could 
not do it. This was written on flimsy 
paper, in a big unformed handwriting, 
and it caused him to betake himself once 
more to Miss Snell’s studio, where he 
found her alone—Cora was at Julian’s. 

She promised to beg Cora to pose, and 
accepted an invitation for them to break¬ 
fast with him in his studio on the follow¬ 
ing Sunday morning. 

He carefully explained to her that his 
whole winter’s work depended upon Cora’s 
posing for him. He half meant it, hav¬ 
ing been seized with the notion that her 
type was what he needed to realize a 
cherished ideal, and he told this to Miss 
Snell, and enlarged upon it until he left 
her rooted in the conviction that he was 
hopelessly in love with Cora—a fact she 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 263 

imparted to that young woman on her 
return from Julian’s. 

Cora listened very placidly, and ex¬ 
pressed no astonishment. He was not 
the first by any means; other people had 
been in love with her in Lynxville, Mas¬ 
sachusetts, and she confided the details of 
several of these love-affairs to Miss Snell’s 
sympathetic ears during the evening. 

Meanwhile, the Painter did nothing, 
and a fresh canvas stood on his easel 
when the girls arrived for breakfast on 
Sunday morning. The big unfinished 
painting was turned to the wall; he had 
lost all interest in it. 

u When I fancy doing a thing I am 
good for nothing else,” he explained to 
Cora, after she had promised him a few 
sittings. “ So you are really saving me 
from idleness by posing.” 

Cora laughed, and was silent. The 
Painter blessed her for not being talk¬ 
ative; her nasal voice irritated him, al¬ 
though her beautiful features were a con¬ 
stant delight. 

Miss Snell had succeeded in perma¬ 
nently eliminating the disfiguring bang, 
and her charming profile was left un¬ 
marred. 

“ I want to paint you just as you are,” 
he said, and noticing that she looked 


264 Harper's Novelettes 

rather disdainfully at her shabby black 
cashmere, added, “ The black of your 
dress could not be better.” 

“ We thought,” said Miss Snell, depre- 
catingly, “ that you might like a costume. 
We could easily arrange one.” 

“ Not in the least necessary,” said the 
Painter. “ I have set my heart on paint¬ 
ing her just as she is.” 

The girls were disappointed in his want 
of taste. They had had visions of a crea¬ 
tion in which two Liberty scarfs and a 
velveteen table cover were combined in a 
felicitous harmony of color. 

“When can I have the first sitting?” 
he asked. 

“ Tuesday, I think,” said Miss Snell, 
reflectively. 

“ Heavens!” thought the Painter. “ Is 
Miss Snell coming with her?” And the 
possibility kept him in a state of nervous¬ 
ness until Tuesday afternoon, when Cora 
appeared, accompanied by the inevitable 
Miss Snell. 

It turned out, however, that the latter 
could not stay. She would call for Cora 
later; just now her afternoons were oc¬ 
cupied. She was doing a pastel portrait 
in the Champs Elysees quarter, so she re¬ 
luctantly left, to the Painter’s great relief. 

He did not make himself very agree- 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 265 

able during the sittings which followed. 
He was apt to get absorbed in his work 
and to forget to say anything. Then Miss 
Snell would appear to fetch her friend, 
and he would apologize for being so dull, 
and Cora would remark that she enjoyed 
sitting quietly, it rested her after the 
noise and confusion at Julian’s. 

“ If she talked much I could not paint 
her, her voice is so irritating,” he con¬ 
fided to a friend who was curious and 
asked all sorts of questions about his new 
sitter. 

The work went well but slowly, for 
Cora sat only twice a week. She felt 
obliged to devote the rest of her time to 
study, as she was living on the prize fund, 
and she even had qualms of conscience 
about the two afternoons she gave up to 
the sittings. 

During all this time Miss Snell con¬ 
tinued to weave chapters of romance 
about Cora and the Painter, and the girls 
talked things over after each sitting when 
they were alone together. 

Spring had appeared very early in the 
year, and the public gardens and boule¬ 
vards were richly green. Chestnut-trees 
blossomed and gaudy flower-beds bloomed 
in every square. The Salons opened, 
and were thronged with an enthusiastic 


266 


Harper's Novelettes 


public, although the papers as usual de¬ 
nounced them as being the poorest exhi¬ 
bitions ever given. 

The Painter had sent nothing, being 
completely absorbed in finishing Cora’s 
portrait, to the utter exclusion of every¬ 
thing else. 

Cora did the exhibitions faithfully. It 
was one of the duties she owed to the 
Lynxville fund, and which she diligently 
carried out. The Painter bothered and 
confused her by many things; he per¬ 
sistently admired all the pictures she liked 
least, and praised all those she did not 
care for. She turned pale with suppressed 
indignation when he differed from her 
opinion, and resented his sweeping con¬ 
tempt of her criticisms. 

On the strength of a remittance from 
the prize fund, and in honor of the sea¬ 
son, she discarded the sailor hat for a 
vivid ready - made creation smacking 
strongly of the Bon Marche. The weath¬ 
er was warm, and Cora wore mitts, 
which the Painter thought unpardonable 
in a city where gloves are particularly 
cheap. The mitts were probably fashion¬ 
able in Lynxville, Massachusetts. Miss 
Snell, who rustled about in stiff black 
silk and bugles, seemed quite oblivious 
to her friend’s want of taste; she was all 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 267 

excitement, for her pastel portrait—by 
some hideous mistake—had been accepted 
and hung in one of the exhibitions, and 
the girls went together on varnishing¬ 
day to see it. There they met the Paint¬ 
er prowling aimlessly about, and Miss 
Snell was delighted to note his devotion 
to Cora. It was a strong proof of his 
attachment to her, she thought. The 
truth was he felt obliged to be civil after 
her kindness in posing. lie wished he 
could repay her in some fashion, but since 
his first visic to Miss Snell’s she had nev¬ 
er offered to show him her work again, 
or asked his advice in any way, and he 
felt a delicacy about offering his services 
as a teacher when she gave him so little 
encouragement. He fancied, too, that she 
did not take much interest in his work, 
and knew she did not appreciate his por¬ 
trait of her, which was by far the best 
thing he had ever done. 

Her lack of judgment vexed him, for 
he knew the value of his work, and ev¬ 
ery day his fellow-painters trooped in to 
see it, and were loud in their praises. It 
would certainly be the clou of any ex¬ 
hibition in which it might be placed. 

During one sitting Cora ventured to 
remark that she thought it a pity he did 
not intend to make the portrait more 


268 


Harpers Novelettes 

complete, and suggested the addition of 
various accessories which in her opinion 
would very much improve it. 

“ It’s by far the most complete thing 
I have ever done,” he said. “ I sha’n’t 
touch it again,” and he flung down his 
brushes in a fit of temper. 

She looked at him contemptuously, 
and putting on her hat, left the studio 
without another word; and for several 
weeks he did not see her again. 

Then he met her in the street, and 
begged her to come and pose for a head 
in his big picture, which he had taken up 
once more. His apologies were so ab¬ 
ject that she consented, but she ceased 
to be punctual, and he never could feel 
quite sure that she would keep her ap¬ 
pointments. 

Sometimes he would wait a whole af¬ 
ternoon in vain, and one day when she 
failed to appear at the promised hour he 
shut up his office and strolled down to 
the Seine. There he caught sight of her 
with a gay party who were about to em¬ 
bark on one of the little steamers that 
ply up and down the river. 

He shook his fist at her from the quay 
where he stood, and watched her and her 
party step into the boat from the pier. 

“ She thinks little enough of the Lynx- 


rhe Prize-Fund Beneficiary 269 

ville Prize Fund when she wants an out¬ 
ing,” he said to himself, scornfully. 

After fretting a little over his wasted 
afternoon, he forgot all about her, and set 
to work with other models. Then he left 
Paris for the summer. 

A few hours after his return, early in 
the fall, there came a knock at his door. 
He had been admiring Cora’s portrait, 
which to his fresh eye looked exception¬ 
ally good. 

Miss Snell, with eyes red and tearful, 
stood on his door-mat when he answered 
the tap. 

“Poor dear Cora,” she said, had re¬ 
ceived a notice from the Lynxville com¬ 
mittee that they did not consider her work 
sufficiently promising to continue the 
fund another year. 

“ She will have to go home,” sobbed 
Miss Snell, but said: “I am forced 
to admit that Cora has wasted a good 
deal of time this summer. She is so 
young, and needs a little distraction 
now and then,” and she appealed to the 
Painter for confirmation of this undoubt¬ 
ed fact. 

He was absent-minded, but assented to 
all she said. In his heart he thought it a 
fortunate thing that the prize fund should 


270 Harper's Novelettes 

be withdrawn. One female art student 
the less: he grew pleased with the idea. 
Cora had ceased to interest him as an in¬ 
dividual, and he considered her only as 
one of an obnoxious class. 

“1 thought you ought to be the first to 
know about it,” said Miss Snell, confi¬ 
dentially, “ because you might have some 
plan for keeping her over here.” Miss 
Snell looked unutterable things that she 
did not dare to put into words. 

She made the Painter feel uncomfort¬ 
able, she looked so knowing, and he be¬ 
came loud in his advice to send Cora home 
at once. 

“ Pack her off,” he cried. u She is wast¬ 
ing time and money by staying. She 
never had a particle of talent, and the 
sooner she goes back to Lynxville the 
better.” 

Miss Snell shrank from his vehemence, 
and wished she had not insisted upon 
coming to consult him. She had as¬ 
sured Cora that the merest hint w r ould 
bring matters to a crisis. Cora would 
imagine that she had bungled matters 
terribly, and she was mortified at the 
thought of returning with the news of a 
repulse. 

As soon as she had gone, the Painter 
felt sorry he had been so hasty. He had 


The Prize-Fund Beneficiary 271 

bundled her unceremoniously out of the 
studio, pleading important work. 

He called twice in the rue Notre Dame 
des Champs, but the porter would never 
let him pass her lodge, and he at last real¬ 
ized that she had been given orders to 
that effect. A judicious tip extracted 
from her the fact that Miss Price expected 
to leave for America the following Sat¬ 
urday, and, armed with an immense bou¬ 
quet, he betook himself to the St. Lazare 
station at the hour for the departure of 
the Havre express. 

He arrived with only a minute to spare 
before the guard’s whistle was answered 
by the mosquitolike pipe that sets the 
train in motion. 

The Botticelli profile was very haughty 
and cold. Miss Snell was there, of course, 
bathed^ in tears. He had just time enough 
to hand in his huge bouquet through the 
open window before the train started. He 
caught one glimpse of an angry face with¬ 
in, when suddenly his great nosegay came 
dying out of the compartment, and strik¬ 
ing him full in the face, spread its shat¬ 
tered paper and loosened flowers all over 
tho platform at his feet. 


THE END 























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A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
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